![]() One such immigrant was Pichetrungsi’s father. Many of them were on student visas that restricted their employment options and ended up finding work in restaurant kitchens and other food businesses, according to Padoongpatt. Thai people started immigrating to the US in the late ‘60s and ‘70s. ![]() “So when (Thai people) come to the United States, they then have to navigate their identity in relation to food.” “Food became the place where a lot of Americans came to understand Thai people for the first time,” Padoongpatt said. In one example detailed in his book, a White woman named Marie Wilson accompanied her husband on a stint in Thailand teaching English and published the cookbook “Siamese Cookery” upon her return. ![]() An expanded American footprint in the country meant that ordinary Americans were able to travel to Thailand and experience its food, which set the stage for the eventual interest in Thai cuisine back home, Padoongpatt said. The US established a strategic relationship with Thailand in the 1960s as it sought to prevent the spread of communism in the region. To understand how Thai restaurants became so widespread in the US, you have to go back to US intervention in southeast Asia during the Cold War, said Mark Padoongpatt, an associate professor of Asian American studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the author of “Flavors of Empire: Food and the Making of Thai America.” ![]()
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