ABSTRACT
Eating practices are often symbolic and tangible ways to preserve their ethnic identities for individuals in multicultural societies. When an individual’s culture is not the dominant culture in the society, Reddy and van Dam (2020) have shown that there is a strong desire to preserve one’s culture through food practices. Importantly, food is not only influenced by the environment and nutritional needs but also social, cultural, and psychological needs. On the other hand, sexual and gender-minority (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer; LGBTQ) individuals are generally more motivated by the need to eat healthily and change their eating behaviours (e.g., binging) to fit a particular aesthetic portrayed on media (Parker & Harriger, 2020). Through an intersectional approach, understanding individuals with both an ethnic minority identity and a LGBTQ identity can place their experiences of food at a conflict, leading to decreased psychological wellbeing (Leung, 2021). Through a social identity approach, this chapter attempts to understand the intersection of an ethnic and sexual minority individual towards food and identity. An autoethnographic analysis (O’Hara, 2018) of my experiences as a Chinese gay individual is juxtaposed with my challenges towards food from ethnic minority culture.
