Alena Xinyue Zhang

In recent years, ‘Asian’ flavors, fruits, and vegetables have become increasingly lucrative for ethnic and mainstream grocers in the United States (Krishna 2024). While public attention has mostly focussed on the role of Asian heritage crops as a cultural bridge for diasporic consumers, my research explores how the cultivation and distribution of such crops enacts identity formation for Asian American farmers. How do agricultural practices settle or unsettle notions of belonging for Asian heritage crop growers in the United States, and how are racial and ethnic selves enacted through farming? My project addresses these questions through an ethnographic investigation of the agricultural practices of Korean and Hmong jujube farmers in California. I propose to conduct 12 months of research, examining how people who work on the various tasks of jujube growing, improving, and selling negotiate and transform the inter- and intra-racial meanings of Asian America. Drawing on in-depth interviews, surveys, and participant observation on jujube farms and with state agricultural extension workers, I study the process of racial formation as co-constituted with agricultural supply chains. My project advances anthropological theory by grounding questions of racial formation in notions of belonging, citizenship, and competition as mediated through multispecies agricultural practice.