About a week ago, Princeton’s Rocky/Mathey dining hall served “Pan-Asian Orange Chicken.” It was not the first time they did so either - “Pan-Asian Orange Chicken” has been served at least three times over the course of this semester. To me, and likely to many other Asians on campus, this significantly stereotypes the types or oranges and chicken Asians eat. The dining hall is essentially stating that all Asians (and possibly Pacific Islanders) eat the same type of orange chicken.
However, different Asians eat different types of orange chicken. Chinese people eat the type of orange chicken you find in the frozen section at Trader Joe’s, Indian people eat the type of orange chicken laden with pungent curry, Russian people eat the type of orange chicken with… I guess a bunch of vodka in it. The dining hall, however, refuses to acknowledge these basic cultural differences and asserts that the same type of orange chicken is eaten by all of of Asia.
Furthermore, I would like to point out that not only is the chicken not deep-fried, but it’s not even steamed! It’s baked! Was baking in any way authentic? We all know that deep frying is the only authentic way to cook Asian dishes. And don’t even get me started on the oranges that were used.
I was so disgusted by this irregular preparation of the chicken and disillusioned by the cultural appropriation that I only ate 6 tenders right before swim practice. If we students are so insulted and affected by this attack on Asian cultural heterogeneity to the point that we can barely eat anything, how are we to survive?
This must change, and we must pressure Princeton’s dining halls to not just serve one “Pan-Asian Orange Chicken,” but a “Chinese Orange Chicken,” an “Indian Orange Chicken,” a “Russian Orange Chicken,” and hopefully, some orange chicken sushi as well, just like how we have General Tso’s flavored meatballs, Swedish meatballs, Curry meatballs, and standard Italian meatballs already. We must protest, and since this is our duty as members of this campus, we should be paid the standard wage of $10 a hour for a campus job to do so.