The story of La Choy Food Company exemplifies how Korean Americans might have capitalized on the ambiguity of Asian identities in the general American consciousness for marketing their food businesses. Image of La Choy products from a 1949 La Choy recipe booklet, 'The Art and Secrets of Chinese Cookery.' Product Cookbooks Collection, Archives Center. Unlike many other Korean immigrants who resided in Hawaii, New attended a school in Nebraska and pursued his undergraduate education at the University of Michigan. Born in Pyongyang, the capital city of present-day North Korea, nine-year-old New crossed the Pacific Ocean to study in the United States. La Choy, the American Chinese food brand, has become a staple of many supermarket chains, but it is worth noting that La Choy's cofounder, Ilhan New, was actually Korean. If, like me, you are a regular shopper in the international aisle of your grocery store, you have seen La Choy soy sauce and canned chop suey. The exhilaration I once felt seeing Korean food items in non-ethnic supermarket chains and the urge to share pictures of the items with my family and friends back home has subsided into an acknowledgment of their everyday availability. An element of the exotic does still remain, although ingredients and dishes such as kimchi, bibimbap, and Korean fried chicken are entering the mainstream consciousness. I believe this curiosity stems from the newfound 'hip' and 'trendy' reputation that Korean food has garnered in many American cities and suburbs in the past few years. Moments such as these have increased in their frequency for me since I arrived in the United States from South Korea a decade ago. 'Where did you get that from?' asked the man waiting in line with me at the grocery store as he looked at my jar of kimchi (fermented pickled vegetables). A photograph of Korean food products-rice wine, soy sauce, and galbi (marinated meat) sauce-at a grocery store in Washington, D.C., that I shared with my family and friends in South Korea.

La choy chop suey vegetables recipe