Tacos Chiwas – Phoenix, Arizona
The city of Phoenix has a population of approximately 1.66 million residents, making it the fifth most populous city in the United States. As anchor for the broader Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler-Scottsdale-Tempe, etc., etc. metropolitan area, more than 4.8 million people call the Valley Of The Sun home. So no, it’s not glutted with designer taco shops competing with modest mom-and-pop taco joints. As in Austin, Texas, there can’t be nearly enough taco shops to appease denizens and visitors who believe tacos should be on the USDA food pyramid–maybe at the top right above pizza and burgers. At the risk of delving (or devolving) into a potential political miasma, one term I’ve not heard used about tacos is “cultural appropriation,” the adoption of elements from a minority or marginalized culture by members of a dominant culture, often in exploitative, disrespectful, or stereotypical ways. Online and print critics bandy about such terms as “gringo tacos” as freely as they ascribe “authenticity” to tacos proffered by scions of Montezuma. It dawned on me when researching Tacos Chiwas just how often the term “authentic” or some derivative thereof was used. Obviously, Tacos Chiwas is several somebodies exemplar of the real thing. Tacos Chiwas was launched in…