Revitalizing Tucson’s Chinese-Mexican Heritage Through Chinese Chorizo
Have you ever heard of Chinese Chorizo, and did you know that it originated in Tucson? Well, neither did Native Tucsonan Feng-Feng Yeh, the creator of the Chinese Chorizo Project.
Ensuring that this lost history is brought back to life is the mission of the Chinese Chorizo Project. And not just to provide a reason for putting up a 15-foot tall sculpture of two sausage links in the middle of downtown Tucson, but also to let Chinese-Americans know that they’re part of the city’s story.
The History of Chinese Chorizo
Growing up in a predominantly upper-middle-class, homogenous area tucked in the foothills of Tucson, Yeh never felt a connection to her culture.
“I wanted to be the farthest thing from my immigrant parents' culture, to rebel from the shame of how different they did everything compared to a Western household,” Yeh said.
Yeh never knew, though, that during the 1880s to 1970s over 100 Chinese-operated neighborhood grocery stores lived alongside Mexicans in the barrios of downtown Tucson, becoming the backbone of those communities. Following a time of Sinophobic immigration policy and violence targeted at Chinese populations, early Chinese immigrants sought refuge in Tucson, where they found community in Mexican hospitality and lived in low-income neighborhoods, or barrios, located in southern Tucson alongside predominantly Mexican, Indigenous, and Black families.
Chinese store owners often spoke Spanish and Indigenous languages, afforded valuable lines of store credit to customers, and provided Mexican staples on their shelves. They also created items that catered to their communities’ needs, like chorizo – a traditional pork sausage familiar to many Mexican families. Chinese Chorizo was a version made by combining leftover ingredients – such as bologna, hot dogs, and often discarded scraps of meat – with red wine, vinegar, and various Mexican hot chilies and spices. The end product was highly sought after by Mexican community members, and selling it provided valuable income to Chinese stores.
Most of these Chinese grocery stores have today been turned into repurposed spaces, residential buildings, or remain unoccupied. However, a handful of the Chinese stores still exist, including New Empire Market which has remained in business for over sixty years.
The story of Chinese specialty stores and Chinese Chorizo never made its way into Yeh’s schoolroom discussions, and it’s something she wouldn’t know about until she began research for a grant proposal idea to build up her community.
How the Sausage is Made
During a transitional time in her life after leaving a career in fashion and a stint as a vegan chef, Yeh went searching for a meaningful project and came across the Night Bloom grant through Tucson's Museum of Contemporary Art. The grant called for community-driven visual art projects in Pima County, and having grown up in the area, Yeh saw this as an opportunity to contribute to her community.
During her research, Yeh discovered the history of Chinese Chorizo on the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center’s website. Learning how Chinese Chorizo was made was more than just discovering a lost recipe for grinding end cuts with spices – it was the missing story of how people that looked liked her had contributed to the place that they lived and made the best of what was available to them.
“The creation of Chinese Chorizo is a mirror for the immigrant experience and, ultimately, a symbol for community solidarity,” explained Yeh.
With a background in art and food, Yeh knew she could compellingly tell the story of Chinese Chorizo, as well as how important it was to tell it.
“The obscured story of the Chinese Chorizo is a piece of history that deserves recognition in cookbooks and history books alike. Its historic context is as rich as its recipe. Its significance is as nourishing as its ingredients,” said Yeh.
With spicy sausage as her inspiration, Yeh submitted a grant proposal to construct a large-scale, mosaic public sculpture of two interlinked Chinese Chorizos and develop a Tucson-based Chinese Chorizo Festival to help share the art project’s meaning. Her proposal was awarded.
Heart of the Barrio
Yeh intentionally designed her Chinese Chorizo sculpture to be ridiculously large – proposing a 15-feet tall mosaic structure to begin construction in the fall of 2024.
“I want the sculpture to be ridiculous; I am inspired by Claes Oldenberg who created giant sculptures of everyday objects. I want to create a symbol that is shocking and oversized so people look at it and ask: ‘Why are two sausages here? What is the meaning of this?’,” Yeh explained.
The large-scale sculpture, titled The Most Sacred Heart of the Barrio, after a Catholic symbol of divine love for humanity, will be comprised of two-linked Chinese chorizo sausages to represent the history of two marginalized communities of Tucson – Chinese and Mexican immigrants who developed community and solidarity through shared experiences and really hot sausage.
“I like to joke that this project is a huge therapy session for myself,” Yeh shared. “I wasn't taught in school that people who look like me made significant contributions to this country and my community. I was shocked to learn about the major impact Chinese immigrants had on the development of this country and about specialty Chinese grocery stores that used to exist in Tucson. Had I known this history, I would have had a very different experience with my own identity.”
Yeh plans for her Chinese Chorizo sculpture to be constructed of repurposed and sustainably-source materials and sited in what was formerly Barrio Viejo—where the Tucson Convention Center is currently located. To invite the community to be a part of the public art project, she added another special component.
The Chinese Chorizo Festival
Putting up a giant chorizo sculpture with little or no input from the community was not an approach Yeh wanted to take, so she created a way to bring them into the journey of learning how the Chinese population contributed to Tucson’s history and the solidarity formed between two immigrant communities. At the heart of the Chinese Chorizo Project is the annual Chinese Chorizo Festival.
“The Chinese Chorizo Festival was designed to be a prelude to the sculpture, because this project is an act of community care,” explained Yeh. “Having a sculpture put up without providing context and participation of the community is invasive and a colonizer mentality. The festival is a way to start a dialogue with the community and let people know about the history of Chinese Chorizo and introduce a historic preservation component to the art project. If it is going to be an icon of the community, I want to make sure they feel represented by it and want it to exist.”
In October of 2022, and in partnership with Tucson Foodie, Yeh launched the first Chinese Chorizo Festival, a month-long event that celebrates the lost historic food symbol of Chinese and Mexican solidarity in Tucson from the 1880s to the 1970s. The event includes art exhibitions, tasting workshops and discussions, dance parties, night markets, and a weekend of food businesses creating dishes that showcase Chinese Chorizo.
With support from Forbes Meat Company, Chef Maria Mazon, Chef Jackie Tran, and Chef Mathew Cable, Yeh crafted two versions of Chinese Chorizo for the festivals: one made with sustainably-sourced meats, and one plant-based vegan. Participating restaurants and food vendors receive two 15-pound donations of the spicy sausage. The food businesses then create their own dishes from the ingredient to be served over a specific weekend.
“Through this festival, the historic recipe of the Chinese chorizo has been given a modern spin to make it accessible to different generations and to allow local restaurants to interpret the role of the sausage as part of their own story,” she said. “Many food workers come from different and often marginalized cultural backgrounds, so this is a fun way for them to interject their own identity into their dish.”
Over the past two years, over 1,300 pounds of Chinese Chorizo – collaboratively crafted by the community – have been distributed to 55+ participating food establishments across Arizona. In the first year, over 20 food businesses in Tucson participated, and in 2023, it expanded to over 35 restaurants and food vendors in both Tucson and Phoenix and raised nearly $32,000 in profits for participating businesses.
Additionally, in 2023, museums and cultural institutions collaborated with Yeh to develop supplemental programming. For example, Yeh partnered with the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson to integrate Chinese Chorizo into their fall fundraiser gala. For the event, Feh constructed a 6-foot Chinese Chorizo disco ball piñata and developed a chorizo-studded focaccia bread with the help of Barrio Bread.
For the next Chinese Chorizo festival, Yeh is planning to include a diverse cultural programming with community organizations and partners and a robust schedule of events. You can look forward to taking part and trying Chinese chorizo for yourself in October 2024, so stay tuned for upcoming date and event announcements.
A Recipe for Solidarity
Over this past year, Yeh has joined collaborative projects and spaces for her to foster dialogue about other issues affecting Asian-American communities. Learning how the sausage was made became an entry point for Yeh into other unexpected places.
Through a Recipe for Solidarity event hosted by University of Arizona Asian Pacific American Student Affairs (APASA), Yeh demonstrated how food traditions can bridge together cultures. In a cooking demonstration that showcased zongzi, a traditional Chinese rice dumpling stuffed with different filings, wrapped in bamboo leaves, and then steamed, Yeh explained how zongzi is similar to a Mexican tamale – which is made from masa, stuffed with various ingredients, wrapped in corn husks, and steamed.
“The event showed how different cultures can teach and learn from each other,” Yeh said. “There were descendants of the Chinese grocery stores there to talk with younger adults. It was a beautiful gathering where different generations could share stories of the past, present, and future and discuss what community care means to them.”
Yeh also recently participated in The Sakura Project, which was an APASA student-led art project where the students in the Japanese American Student Association collectively made clay Sakura flowers, also known as cherry blossoms, to make a flower graph demonstrating the dwindling blooming window of the Sakura flower due to climate change.
For the event, Yeh made wagashi, a Japanese bean pastry, in the shape of Sakura flowers and hosted a workshop teaching the students how to create them. Yeh also spoke at the event and discussed with the students the importance of art and cultural preservation, specifically as a collective way to advocate for addressing climate injustices that directly impact marginalized communities.
“People who are most affected by climate change are often marginalized communities. These areas have historically not received public funds or investments and are also sites for industrialization activities. When we spoke about the Sakura flower and its significance in Japanese culture during the event, we talked about how part of the Japanese identity is being erased by climate change,” explained Yeh.
Moreover, she explained why it is important to her to have people connect with their cultural identity and ancestral knowledge:
“When we have connection to the land and symbols of culture, like the Sakura flower, people have more care for everything around them, including the environment. It’s important to be really intentional about having a dialogue with the community and what we value. Doing this is environmentalism – it creates accountability for how we show up in the world,” says Yeh.
The Chinese Chorizo Project has enabled Yeh to show others that through true care and solidarity, different cultures can build thriving communities together.
To Learn More & Support the Chinese Chorizo Project:
Stay connected with @chinesechorizoproject to learn about some exciting announcements coming at the end of May/early June and to be the first to know when the dates are set for the next festival
Sponsor the Chinese Chorizo Project Festival here
Donate to the Most Sacred Heart of the Barrio sculpture here
Watch: Chinese Chorizo: Tucson Chinese Cultural Center History Program
Watch: Climate Change and Cherry Blossoms in Washington, D.C.