Borders Close, But Ovens Stay Warm — How Immigration Keeps Our Tables Alive

In times like these, when the rhetoric of fear threatens to define the public square — when walls are praised and visas tightened — it’s worth pausing to notice something quietly revolutionary happening in our cities, in our neighborhoods, and, perhaps most importantly, in our kitchens. Because while politics hardens borders, food defies them.

Across the globe, we’re witnessing the rise of far-right ideologies dressed in the language of patriotism. Nationalist movements are gaining momentum — often not by building something better, but by inventing enemies within. Their strategy is clear: divide the public along lines of race, origin, and culture, and disguise it as “protecting identity.” But beneath their flags and slogans lies a more cynical truth: it’s not pride they’re selling — it’s fear. And in that fear, they seek to turn cultural exchange into contamination, and migration into menace.

And yet, food refuses to cooperate with that vision. It tells a different, more honest story — one of connection.

Step into any vibrant food scene today — whether it’s a bustling street market or a white-linen bistro — and you’ll see it plainly: immigration is not a threat to culinary tradition. It is the reason tradition stays alive. It is the heartbeat of modern gastronomy.

Because tradition, after all, is not a museum. It is a living, breathing thing — it grows, adapts, flirts with the unfamiliar, and makes space for the new. And it is immigrants who so often carry that fire, who bring with them not only spices and sauces, but entire ways of thinking about nourishment, community, and hospitality.

From Syrian bakers reviving forgotten bread ovens in Paris, to West African chefs reimagining fine dining in New York, to Venezuelan arepa stalls holding their ground beside the most established Italian delis — our culinary landscapes are shaped and enriched by those who arrived with memory in their hands and resilience in their bones.

Let’s be clear: fusion is not dilution. It’s dialogue. When a Mexican chef uses Korean gochujang to spice up carnitas, or a Filipino baker riffs on French patisserie, they’re not betraying “authenticity” — they’re reminding us that food has always traveled. The tomato was once foreign to Italy. The chili pepper a stranger to Thailand. What we now call “traditional” was once called “foreign” — or worse.

And yet, in certain circles, there’s a growing chorus that frames immigration as erosion: of identity, of values, of culture. They clutch their menus like they clutch their borders — rigid, unmoved, nostalgic for a purity that never truly existed. But a cuisine that doesn’t evolve dies. A culture that closes itself off stops growing. And a nation that forgets the hands that knead its dough forgets its own future.

Because it is immigrants — and their children, and their grandchildren — who continue to ask the most vital question in the kitchen: What else is possible?

They remind us that food is not just sustenance, but story. Not just flavor, but freedom. It is in the steam of dumplings, the perfume of berbere, the vinegar of pickled mangoes, that we remember who we are — and who we still might become.

So the next time someone tells you we need fewer immigrants to preserve our “way of life,” invite them to dinner. Take them to a Sri Lankan café tucked between a laundromat and a liquor store. Let them taste what happens when cultures meet not in fear, but in flavor.

Because at the end of the day, it’s not the walls that protect us. It’s the recipes we’re still brave enough to share will make us stronger. It’s the courage to share a table with someone whose story is not our own.t protect us. It’s the recipes we’re still brave enough to share.