"D.C. is mambo sauce": Black cultural production in a gentrifying city. Issue 3 (November 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Reese, Ashanté M.
• Other Names: Hammelman Colleen guest-editor.; Reynolds Kristin guest-editor.; Levkoe Charles Z. guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Human geography. Volume 13:Issue 3(2020)
• Page Start: 253
• Page End: 262
• Publication Date: 2020-11
• Subjects: Black food culture -- Black food geographies -- Black cultural production -- critical food geographies -- Washington, D.C. -- Black Urban Geographies; Cultura alimentaria negra -- geografías alimentarias negras -- producción cultural negra -- geografías alimentarias críticas -- Washington -- D.C. -- geografías urbanas negras; Human geography -- Periodicals; 304.205
• DOI: 10.1177/1942778620962046
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1942-7786

Abstract

Centering mambo sauce as both a cultural staple and a metaphor for struggles over ownership in Washington, D.C., this article explores mambo sauce's role in constructing a D.C. identity. Drawing on data from ethnographic interviews and newspaper headlines, I argue that, against the background of intense and consistent gentrification that has left the city's population younger, whiter, and wealthier, mambo sauce becomes a lens through which to examine larger tensions related to race, class, and power. Specifically, I examine mambo sauce as a form of Black cultural production to explore the dialectical relationship between how mambo travels well beyond the carryout restaurants in Black working-class neighborhoods and the displacement of Black residents in the gentrifying city.