URN:NBN:fi:tsv-oa46369
DOI: 10.11143/46369

Performing national identity through Peruvian food migration in 
Santiago de Chile

WALTER A. IMILAN

Imilan, Walter A. (2015). Performing national identity through Peruvian food 
migration in Santiago de Chile. Fennia 193: 2, 227–241. ISSN 1798-5617.

The article explores the processes of re-production of national identity based on 
food-related practices and discourses of Peruvian migrants living in Santiago de 
Chile. The meeting point of these three fields – migration, national identity and 
food – is most evidently performed in the celebration of the Peruvian National 
Holidays in Santiago. The article finds evidence that the performance in this 
national festivity reinforces a sense of Peruvianness, thus contributing to the 
study of contemporary processes of renewal of national identities in transna-
tional contexts. The case study also demonstrates that the ascription of national 
identity by Peruvian in Santiago is strategic, and it operates as an assemblage of 
various and locally situated elements.

Keywords: migration, national identity, food migration, performance, Santiago 
de Chile

Walter A. Imilan, Instituto de la Vivienda, Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, 
Portugal 85, Santiago, Universidad de Chile, Chile, E-mail: wa.imilan@gmail.com

Introduction

The presence of Peruvian migrants in the city of 
Santiago de Chile has become increasingly visible 
thanks to a booming of food-related businesses 
such as restaurants and convenience stores. These 
businesses advertise themselves with a Peruvian 
image through the display of national symbols like 
flags, photographs and logos that certify the na-
tional origin of their products. Through these refer-
ences, they have shaped an unprecedented mi-
grant landscape in Santiago (Imilan 2014). Food 
businesses have become a successful integration 
strategy for an important sector of the migrant 
community who rely on displaying a recognizable 
link to their national origin. 

This article explores the ways in which migra-
tion, food and national identity intersect in the case 
of Peruvian migrants in Santiago.  Food and the ac-
tivities surrounding it are not only a resource for 
economic integration, but also act as a mediating 
factor in the re-creation of a Peruvian national 
identity. Peruvian migrants in Santiago indeed use 
food as a way of performing their national distinc-
tiveness from the host society. In this sense, they 

clearly reenact the kind of identity process theo-
rized by Goffman (2009) and Bruner (1986), which 
stress the importance of communication to achieve 
recognition from ‘others’, in this case, the host so-
ciety. This performativity of national identity finds a 
precise time and space for its execution in the case 
of Peruvian migrants in Santiago. Since 2012, a se-
ries of massive celebrations have taken place in 
central parts of the city during the Peruvian Na-
tional Holiday. These weekend festivals follow the 
concept of culinary festivals, which have become 
increasingly popular in Peru, mixed with elements 
taken from Chilean National Holidays. Among all 
the Peruvian communities abroad, it is only in San-
tiago that Peruvian migrants have attempted to re-
create a sense of national identity by at the same 
time seeking recognition from the host society. 

Food is undoubtedly an important resource in 
the construction of individual and collective iden-
tities (Goody 1982). In contexts of globalization 
and transnational migrations, food migration – 
understood as the movement of foodstuffs and cu-
linary practices during human migration – opens 
up a field where multiple geographies intersect; 
references to what is local, national and global 



228 FENNIA 193: 2 (2015)Walter A. Imilan

are reorganized based on the everyday experi-
ence of migrants.

Peruvian migration to Chile has rapidly in-
creased in the last decade. In 2011, over thirty 
thousand temporary residency visas were granted 
to Peruvian citizens, thus becoming the largest mi-
grant group, which currently makes up 37% of 
Chile's foreign population and close to 2.5% of 
the total national population (DEM 2013). 

Research on migration to Chile is relatively re-
cent and it focuses on a few specific subjects: fem-
inization processes (Mora 2008; Stefoni & Fernan-
dez 2011; Tijoux 2013); transnational maternity 
and care (Acosta 2013; Gonzálvez 2014); use and 
construction of public and private space (Garcés 
2014; Márquez 2014; Imilan 2014); border rela-
tions (Lube & Garcés 2012; Tapia-Ladino 2012); 
and aspects related to migration and citizenship 
(Stefoni 2011; Thayer 2013). The food migration 
field has only been marginally investigated, main-
ly as economic integration strategies and not as a 
source for identity construction processes. 

The presence of Peruvian migrants in Chile is 
particularly relevant when one considers that 
Chile’s national identity was founded on a relation 
based on opposition to the elements of Peruvian 
culture. The War of the Pacific (1879–1883) played 
a fundamental role in configuring both national 
imaginaries – especially in the consolidation of 
Chilean national identity – bringing about con-
trasts and differentiations which still persist today 
(González & Parodi 2014). The war resulted in the 
defeat of the allied army of Bolivia and Peru, and 
the loss of a significant portion of their national 
territories. Additionally, the Chilean army took 
possession of Peru’s capital city, Lima, for two 
years (1881–1883).

Chileans have constructed their image as a 
white, – allegedly European – modern and wealthy 
society exactly in contrast to Peruvians, who have 
been regarded in the Chilean imaginary as poor, 
backwards and indigenous. This outlook still in-
forms all sorts of discriminatory actions and heat-
ed nationalist debates in relation to the large pres-
ence of Peruvian population in Santiago (Garcés 
2014). However, instead of attempting to “blend 
in” as a means of protection, the Peruvian migrants 
make themselves visible in the public spaces of 
Santiago. This is particularly true for activities re-
lated to gastronomy. Especially in Santiago's case 
one can speak of a Peruvian food migration. Peru-
vian food shops, restaurants and street food ven-
dors have transformed the urban space, giving 

shape to an unprecedented migration landscape 
(Stefoni 2008; Imilan 2014).

Certainly, the concept of national cuisine has 
played a significant role in the construction of im-
aginaries of national communities since the rise of 
national states in the nineteenth century (Barlösius 
2011). In Peru, in recent years, these culinary prac-
tices have influenced the way in which Peruvian-
ness is narrated and performed. At the same time, 
they have driven a very successful gastronomic in-
dustry. Thus, nowadays Peruvian cuisine has be-
come both a marker of national identity and a 
source of economic development. The government 
agencies and private associations of gastronomic 
entrepreneurs, who act as official promoters, have 
worked together in the formulation and execution 
of policies aimed at promoting food-related busi-
nesses and activities. Thus, they have contributed to 
the strengthening of a dominant narrative around 
Peruvian culinary knowledge. Entrepreneurship, 
sustainable food industry, heritage of food products 
and local producers have joined forces, achieving 
international recognition and a prestige status (Lau-
er & Lauer 2006). As a result, there has been a sig-
nificant improvement in the labor perspectives of 
Peruvians working in this sector both at home and 
abroad. The emergence of this renewed national 
narrative has had a deep impact on an important 
occurrence in Peru's recent history: in the course of 
the last two decades over 10% of the country's pop-
ulation has migrated abroad (Sánchez 2012). A 
strengthened notion of national cuisine now sup-
ports the renewal of symbolic and emotional links 
of the millions of migrants with their country and 
communities of origin. 

This article focuses on the public performance of 
national identity in relation to food practices. Its 
main argument is that Peruvian migrants in Santiago 
construct their national identity by appropriating 
the official narrative surrounding Peruvian food and 
cuisine. The migrants take advantage of this narra-
tive as an effective strategy in the negotiation of 
their multi-sited emplacements resulting from their 
transnational experiences. The present article illus-
trates the mechanisms of performing national iden-
tity as an assemblage of narratives and practices that 
are produced in different spaces – national and 
transnational – and performed in Santiago. Based 
on an ethnographic account of the celebration of 
the Peruvian National Holiday in Santiago, the pa-
per reflects on how food plays a major role in un-
derstanding the forms of self-representation and 
recognition of the Peruvian migrant community 



FENNIA 193: 2 (2015) 229Performing national identity through Peruvian food migration 

abroad. Furthermore, it explores the re-construction 
of a national identity as a local process within the 
context of transnational migrations.

Food and identities 

The relationship between food and processes of 
identity formation might seem obvious. The state-
ment “we are what we eat” is adequately concep-
tualized in the idea of ‘foodways’, which describes 
the feeding practices that interlock with the cul-
ture, tradition and history of different communities. 
Classical anthropologists such as Malinowski 
(1985) or Boas (1987) approached food practices 
as central elements in the understanding of group 
solidarity. Harris (1984) focused on the ways in 
which societies generate their nourishment stand-
ards based on their relationship with the environ-
ment (natural resources, climate, etc.). According 
to Douglas (2002) the religious distinction between 
‘pure’ and ‘impure’ hid behind everyday food prac-
tices. Lévi-Strauss (1997) went somewhat beyond 
by stating that food is not just “good for thinking” 
but also “good for eating”. He endeavored to clear 
up such an inquiry by observing the way cultures 
work. In fact, the relationship between identity and 
food is discussed in many research studies, making 
its multiple roles within culture evident. 

Beyond the concerns of anthropology about 
food, a field of inquiry has recently developed 
with a strong focus on the commodification of 
food and cuisines. Classic works on the subject in-
clude the biography of sugar by Mintz (1986) 
which narrates the various episodes that paved the 
way to the globalization of sugar production in the 
Caribbean islands. As sugar becomes “good for 
eating”, it builds imaginaries, new relationships, 
tastes and distinctions, but also commercial, dip-
lomatic and armed conflicts. 

The study of food and cuisines is thriving and in 
recent years it has given birth to an interdiscipli-
nary research field concerned with the relation-
ship between food, globalization and identities 
(see Watson & Caldwell 2005; Nützenadel & 
Trentmann 2008).

These “food biographies” are ways of explaining 
local–global connections and the different over-
lapping agents and actors. The acknowledgment of 
food as part of an identity repertoire makes room 
for the conflicts between ‘sameness’ and ‘other-
ness’ in times of economic globalization (Watson 
& Cadwell 2005).

Food, as a source of construction of national 
identities, has been one of the main narratives in 
the making of imagined communities (Anderson 
1993), as described by Elias (2010) in terms of the 
civilizing power of what and how to eat. 

In global contexts, the national is redefined as a 
contest between diverse geographies. For instance, 
Wilk (1999) indicates that Belize’s cuisine is de-
fined only after contrasting this country with its 
previous colonial rule, its neighbors and its com-
munities in diaspora. The negotiation between 
these geographies was furthered by tourism in the 
young independent State, which demanded a na-
tional specificity to its culinary culture. One of the 
characteristics of a narrative linked to food is that 
it is embodied. In other words, it becomes part of 
an individual through the body and the sensitive 
mediations that consolidate memories (Sutton 
2001). In this sense, food and the construction of a 
notion of ‘home’ are, in many cases, inseparable 
(Cieraad 2006).

Food has an unconscious force, in the non-dis-
cursive sense, as the construction of identity im-
plies high levels of subjective appropriation for its 
sensitive internalization. At the same time, food is 
‘designed’ to be shared, to communicate differ-
ence. This is how its performative strength is gener-
ated. This is also what commonly takes place with 
migrant populations that arrange their culinary 
practices as spaces of communication and recog-
nition. In this sense, the so-called “ethnic restau-
rants” (Möhring 2012) are spaces where local cli-
ents are taken on a sensory voyage to a foreign 
place. They present themselves as a ‘fragment’ of 
the foreign culture that co-inhabits in the city and 
enriches its consumers by broadening their sensi-
tive repertoires. Although the dishes offered in 
these types of restaurants are often adapted to lo-
cal tastes, the issue here is not whether a particular 
dish is genuine or not, but to understand the whole 
process as a form of communication, of setting the 
stage for difference. Gastronomy is, in this sense, a 
source of cultural performance. 

Peruvian national identity, national 
food narrative

Peru is currently experiencing a gastronomical 
boom. This process was consolidated during the 
mid-1990s, encouraged by major transformations 
in the culinary production derived from its interna-



230 FENNIA 193: 2 (2015)Walter A. Imilan

tionalization. Mirko and Vera Lauer (2006) call it a 
“gastronomic revolution” and characterize it as a 
series of changes which took place both within 
Peru and abroad: changes in the “techniques, 
tastes, ingredients, business attitudes, professional 
cultures, consumers' participation, local and inter-
national recognition, academic research, the re-
covery of historical and regional heritage, editorial 
impulse and presence on the public space” (Lauer 
& Lauer 2006: 15). For these authors, these chang-
es were made possible by the revaluation of the 
existing cuisine and the discovery of the ancient 
one. This took place simultaneously with the emer-
gence of young chefs of the haute cuisine coming 
from the upper class families of Lima.

The 1990s was the decade in which Peru opened 
up to the world, as a result of neoliberal policies, 
while at the same time it marked the beginning of 
the Peruvian diaspora. In this context, Peruvian 
cuisine became a link between migrants and their 
communities of origin (Altamirano 2000). A sense 
of nostalgia led to the popularization of certain ba-
sic products of the Peruvian diet. Nevertheless, as 
mentioned earlier, for most of these migrants, food 
remains a private affair.

The Peruvian cuisine boom mainly refers to a 
haute cuisine segment. Its main characteristic is 
the appropriation of Andean and Amazonian food 
products that are considered to be ‘traditional’ and 
‘native’. These mostly indigenous foodstuffs, 
strongly linked to their regional consumption, 
gained status after going “through the hands of 
cooks with privileged personal stories, who had 
the possibility of studying in Europe and the Unit-
ed States of America” (Matta 2011: 201). Thus, tra-
ditional culinary practices were revalued by these 
cosmopolitan segments of Peruvian society. There 
is a marked social class connotation behind the 
modern construction of the profession and image 
of the chef as an artist and entrepreneur. His indi-
vidual talent is a source of social prestige, prestige 
that is closely linked to his upper class origin. 
However, this process has trickled down from the 
higher urban classes down to the popular classes. 
Matta (2011: 39) confirms that “the experimental 
and playful impulse or the revaluation of local in-
gredients are two contributions that come from 
above and that are subsequently adopted by lower 
class businesses”. This appropriation by the lower 
classes is the reason why authors have called this a 
multiregional and multiclass revolution. This call 
to identity has dug deep in the collective imagina-
tion by connecting foods with their cultures of ori-

gin and turning them into a reason for pride. Exter-
nal valuation and the appeal of Peruvian cuisine in 
a more cosmopolitan and globalized context has 
been fundamental in this process. Matta (2012: 
23) observes that “the introduction of Peruvian 
gastronomy in this cosmopolitan field has ex-
pressed itself since the nineties, with the fortunate 
encounter of a certain amount of native ingredi-
ents with international culinary techniques in-
spired by French Nouvelle Cuisine. The first results 
set the foundation for a wave that has been called 
Novoandina (neo-Andean), a term coined by chefs 
Bernardo Roca Rey and Luis Cucho La Rosa in the 
eighties”. Rodriguez, Peruvian anthropologist, 
ironically states that this generation of chefs had to 
use the prefix neo, “...simply because the term An-
dean had not appealed to the elites of Lima”.1

Another element that was central in this devel-
opment was the role played by the expansion of 
the tourism industry, which transformed Peru, es-
pecially with the success of Machu Picchu as a 
tourist attraction, into a global destination. In fact, 
gastronomy and tourism have been related to the 
so-called ‘boom’ from the beginning. Today tour-
ists attempt to get a taste of local cuisine, but find 
an offer of international restaurants. Tourism con-
tributed to the development of a high-standard lo-
cal food offer, encouraging the sophistication of 
traditional recipes.

The gastronomical boom and its association 
with a narrative of national identity building can be 
said to be the product of an assemblage of actors 
and institutions of the public and private sectors 
that carry out development projects and proposals 
on a local, regional and international scale. The 
initiatives are directed, as stated by Matta (2011: 
50), towards “exporting Peruvian Cuisine – or a so-
phisticated version of it – through the opening of 
Peruvian restaurants abroad and the systematiza-
tion of certain types of local or ‘native’ agricultural 
production with the objective of guaranteeing the 
sustainability of a Peruvian culinary-gastronomic 
system and acknowledging the contribution of ru-
ral Andean and Amazonian knowledge and culi-
nary traditions, or attaining UNESCO's recognition 
as an intangible cultural heritage”.

Among the private actors, APEGA (Asociación 
Peruana de Gastronomía, in Spanish) is undoubt-
edly the most relevant. It has achieved agreements 
with ministries, government agencies and univer-
sities, and links to agriculture and livestock pro-
ducers. The association promotes Peruvian gas-
tronomy in all areas of commercial development 



FENNIA 193: 2 (2015) 231Performing national identity through Peruvian food migration 

together with other objectives not limited to reve-
nue production, such as campaigning for healthier 
nutrition or the promotion of agricultural, livestock 
and hydrobiological resources in an inclusive 
manner (APEGA/CEPLAN 2012). Their marketing 
activities reach their highest point each year in 
Mistura, Lima, the culinary fair that has become 
well known and grown in importance in recent 
years, with over half a million visitors in Septem-
ber 2013.2 Additionally, during other months they 
organize a series of regional fairs in which devel-
opment projects with local farming producers are 
launched. APEGA has carried out the Alianza Pro-
ject since 2009, linking cooks and farmers in order 
to support the articulation of small producers in 
culinary markets. They have also headed a series 
of initiatives oriented towards reassessing culinary 
heritage and launching Lima as a culinary capital 
within the continent. 

A main component of this process has been the 
education of new cooks through the publication of 
books and other materials and, most importantly, 
by directly supporting the development of cooking 
schools, as in the case of the Pachacútec Cooking 
Institute. This school aims at reducing the social 
gap among young cookery students. Educational 
institutions are expensive and are mostly attended 
by the middle and higher classes. The Institute was 
established in Ventanilla, a poverty stricken district 
of Lima. Not only is the tuition relatively low, but 
they also benefit the students through links to oth-
er international institutes and chefs. Their best 
ones have access to internships and workshops, 
for example in European countries like Spain and 
Italy. A similar case is the Pisco Cooking School in 
the city of Pisco. These educational initiatives por-
tray an image of Peruvian gastronomy as a space of 
professional development that enables social mo-
bility for young men and women from disadvan-
taged classes.

APEGA's intention, judging from the quantity of 
projects it supports and their broad spectrum, is un-
doubtedly to transform Peruvian gastronomy to a 
national industry that integrates different elements 
into a holistic whole: from the work of agricultural 
producers in the isolated regions of the country to 
the exportation of culinary knowledge and prac-
tices to more sophisticated global markets.

Among the most important State actors is 
Promperú (Comisión de Promoción del Perú para 
la Exportación y el Turismo, in Spanish), a ministe-
rial office in charge of developing a branding strat-
egy, known in Spanish as Marca País, to attract 

tourism. As part of their job, a series of interna-
tional promotional videos where Peruvian cuisine 
plays a major role was created. For example, the 
first advertisement was named “Peru, Nebraska”3, 
in reference to a small town named Peru located in 
Nebraska, USA. The spot begins with a bus bear-
ing the colors of the Marca Perú in which Peruvian 
celebrities arrive at the Midwestern town: actors, 
actresses and well known chefs from Lima fol-
lowed by musicians, singers and others. Among 
the chefs, there are some who have recently been 
raised to celebrity status. The group is dressed in 
uniform and headed by Gastón Acurio – an icon of 
the gastronomic boom, who, not coincidentally, 
drives the bus. In the spot, the Peruvian guests 
teach the town inhabitants about their rights as 
‘Peruvians’. The first right is shouted by one of the 
chefs: “You live in Peru and have the right to eat 
delicious food”, as the rest of the group displays a 
variety of Peruvian dishes.

In 2012 a documentary called Peru Sabe: la 
cocina, arma social (Peru knows/tastes: cuisine as 
a social weapon) was produced. It covers a visit to 
Peru by the Catalan chef Ferrán Adriá, famous for 
revolutionizing the profession through molecular 
cuisine. According to the script, Adriá is invited to 
Peru by Gastón Acurio. The whole story seems en-
gineered, more a marketing strategy than a true 
documentary. The popular Peruvian chef accom-
panies Adriá as a guide through the country's re-
gions, showing the Catalan chef the diversity of 
foodstuffs and the wisdom of Peruvian gastrono-
my. The documentary seems to show how Adriá, 
from Europe, Old World and cradle of haute cui-
sine, discovers or re-discovers the wealth of Peru 
in a metonymical way. The visit ends in the 
Pachacútec Cooking Institute, where Peru's culi-
nary potential is revealed as a social revolution by 
enabling social mobility for disadvantaged Peruvi-
an youths. Thus the gastronomic industry is re-
vealed as a complex and integrated strategy for the 
country's development.

In recent years the alliance between APEGA 
and State agencies has put forward a series of cu-
linary holidays, such as “Día del Pollo a la Brasa” 
(Grilled Chicken Day, 2010), “Día del Pisco Sour” 
(Pisco Sour Day, 2004) “Día Nacional del Cevi-
che” (National Ceviche Day, 2008), “Año Nacion-
al de la Papa” (National Year of Potatoes, 2008) 
and “Año Nacional de la Quinoa” (National Year 
of Quinoa, 2013).

It is important to point out that the relationship 
between state and food practices is not new in 



232 FENNIA 193: 2 (2015)Walter A. Imilan

Peru. In the 1920s, the Peruvian State promoted 
the development of so-called restaurantes popu-
lares (working class restaurants), meant to offer the 
emerging working class a diet in accordance with 
an urban and modern lifestyle. Drinot (2011) re-
searched this institution in the context of moderni-
zation and industrialization policies. He observed 
that the fundamental objective of the project was 
to promote a society which adapts its cultural pro-
gram to an idea of modernization, which saw in 
indigenous cultures its main hindrance. In this 
way, the restaurantes populares should replace the 
feeding practices of the indigenous population, 
but at the same time they were meant to distance 
the urban population from the growing influence 
of Chinese restaurants, which already developed 
as a mass offer for the lower segments of society at 
that time.4 The racist conception of this policy, ori-
ented toward annulling the indigenous and Asian 
influences on the growing Peruvian urban working 
class through eating habits, had little impact, ac-
cording to Drinot. The restaurantes populares nev-
er attained the expected popularity and the gov-
ernment did not persevere enough with the project 
to counteract the dynamics of culture. 

This first attempt by the state at policing food 
was developed as part of an explicit project of the 
construction of the nation. Many research authors 
(Aragón 2014; Degregori 2014a) have pointed out 
that the construction of a Peruvian national iden-
tity, conducted by ‘white’ urban elite, persistently 
denied the country's indigenous societies during 
the twentieth century. To be an ‘indio’ (of indige-
nous origin) was a stigmatized category, to the 
point that even the indigenous communities have 
denied this ascription themselves, replacing it, for 
example with the concept of ‘cholo’, a person of 
racially mixed origin with a distant indigenous 
past (Bruce 2007). This sustained process of invisi-
bilization of indigenous cultures in Peru explains 
the lack of a national political project originating 
from indigenous communities, as has been the 
case in the last two decades of the twentieth cen-
tury in neighboring countries like Ecuador or Bo-
livia (Degregori 2014b).

Although the State has stood behind the imple-
mentation of the restaurantes populares and the 
enactment of the current food policies, there is a 
fundamental difference in the concept of national 
identity in both cases. In the 1920s food was 
meant to play a role in the formation of a modern 
identity, through the invalidation and replacement 
of indigenous identities and other cultural influ-

ences, Chinese, for example, regarded as threats to 
this process. Currently, the food campaigns are 
based on the acknowledgment of Peru's diverse 
identities, integrating anything from ancestral food 
preparations (from pre-Incan and Incan times) to 
the current trends, also mixing the culinary prac-
tices of a diversity of cultural influences: indige-
nous, mestizo, European, Asian. Regional diversity 
is synthesized as well: products and preparations 
of distant ecological spaces such as the Andes, the 
Coast and the Amazon jungle become unified. In 
fact, the discourse on national identity has changed 
radically, although the elite in power, consequent-
ly responsible for articulating these polices, be-
longs to the same social groups then and now. In 
this sense, this new narrative is presented as an 
apparent ‘discovery’ of popular food practices by 
the traditional elites, and the recognition of their 
economic value in a global context. A discourse is 
thus constructed around national cuisine that rec-
ognizes, values and integrates diversity as a perfect 
metaphor of contemporary national identity. 

In terms of the present research, it is fundamen-
tal to point out that Peru's current food campaigns 
not only strengthen the national identity of Peruvi-
ans living in Peru, but also of those living abroad. 
Thus, gastronomy becomes a key identity reference 
for Peruvian transnational communities. In this 
sense, the TV spots of the Marca Perú end with a 
message to all Peruvians: “Peru is an open brand, 
we are all called to be its ambassadors”. This is a 
clear invitation to the Peruvian communities 
abroad. Here is the place where advertising poli-
cies related to Peruvian gastronomy intersect with 
the stories and experiences of migrants in Santiago. 

Peruvian migrants not only appropriate these 
strategies, they also endow them with new mean-
ings, an activity now conceived on a global scale. 
It is, therefore, not surprising that some authors 
(Altamirano 2000; Lauer 2012) claim that Peruvi-
an cuisine has become a “cultural icon” for mi-
grant communities, a point of reference for the 
collective construction of national identities. This 
is particularly true in Santiago.

Peruvian food marking Santiago

Peruvian migration to Santiago, especially during 
the last 15 years, has transformed the urban land-
scape (Imilan 2014). Currently over eighty thou-
sand Peruvians live in Chile's capital (DEM 2013). 
Most of them come from the cities and regions of 



FENNIA 193: 2 (2015) 233Performing national identity through Peruvian food migration 

the Northern Peruvian Coast, such as Chimbote, 
Trujillo and Chiclayo, and to a lesser degree, from 
Lima and its surroundings. There is very little re-
search on migrants originating from the Andean 
regions of Peru. Despite the lack of official records, 
we know from other research  (Torres & Hidalgo 
2009; Correa et al. 2013) that a large segment earn 
their livelihood either in construction, in the case 
of men; or housekeeping jobs, especially among 
women; or they work as salespeople and in vari-
ous businesses. There also are some who have a 
technical and professional education and have 
had relative success finding work within the 
healthcare system or private businesses, but little is 
known about this last group as research tends to 
concentrate on the more vulnerable populations. 
A considerable number of people in this migrant 
community have become gastronomic entrepre-
neurs and businesspeople, especially within the 

framework of so-called “nostalgia economies” 
(Duany 2011) which mark public space. This in-
cludes convenience stores offering national prod-
ucts, call centers and, most importantly, restau-
rants of national Peruvian cuisine.

Figure 1 shows the localization of Peruvian res-
taurants in Santiago. In the early 1990s, according 
to restaurant owners interviewed as part of our re-
search, there were only two Peruvian restaurants 
in Santiago. The next restaurants to open were lo-
cated in the central sectors of the city. These cen-
tral districts underwent a serious decay process 
during the seventies and eighties, a time in which 
the middle and higher classes migrated to the pe-
riphery. The deteriorated city center became avail-
able for low cost housing, frequently through in-
formal access. This made room for migrants to set-
tle in these areas, mainly the historic center and 
the Recoleta and Independencia districts, espe-

Fig. 1. The localization of Peruvian restaurants in Santiago de Chile (March 2013).



234 FENNIA 193: 2 (2015)Walter A. Imilan

cially after the late 1990s. For many migrants this 
is the first stop when they arrive in the city. In these 
districts the Peruvian culinary offer is first oriented 
towards the Peruvian community itself and then 
secondly to Chileans. We found that in a second 
growth stage, during the first decade of the 2000s, 
the trend was to open new businesses towards the 
eastern side of the city, where commercial, finan-
cial and residential districts with a high rate of 
consumption of global cuisine are located. 

During the months of January and February 
2013, an enumeration of Santiago's restaurants 
was carried out as part of the present research. A 
team of research assistants5 searched different di-
rectories and the city’s main streets to identify res-
taurants and pinpoint their locations. In the sec-
ond stage, the research team focused on the San-
tiago central area and carried out a detailed search 
on all streets to further identify Peruvian restau-
rants and carry out a brief survey in each one of 
them. We were thus able to put together an ap-
proximate map of food businesses existing as of 
March 2013. Over 300 restaurants were registered 
during the time of this study. 

This study gives a very specific image, within a 
very specific time frame. This is constantly chang-
ing, as observed during and after our research. 
Some months after its completion, a series of new 
restaurants in the peripheral sectors of the city, 
where the middle classes reside, were identified.

During the 1990s, Chile was a recovering de-
mocracy and started opening its society to a glo-
balized consumer market. In a way, the rise of Pe-
ruvian cuisine went hand in hand with the expan-
sion of more complex leisure offerings in general, 
with food being one of them. 

This increase in Peruvian restaurants managed 
by migrants seems to be unique when compared 
with similar cases in other cities, such as in Europe 
or the United States of America, where employ-
ment strategies are usually linked to jobs in the 
service and agricultural sectors (Altamirano 2000). 
In these host countries, the food experience re-
mains within the private sphere of family and 
friends. Isolated entrepreneurial attempts depend 
on a large initial investment and on expensive 
publicity campaigns, and are usually destined to 
open trendy restaurants in exclusive neighbor-
hoods of big cities such as New York or London.6 
In fact, Peruvian cuisine, in all possible price seg-
ments, seems to have found in Santiago its most 
successful address of all the current destinations of 
Peruvian migration.

Usually the study of food migration focuses on 
the so-called ethnic economies. Even though their 
empirical expression is a matter of great debate, 
they can generally be defined as economic activi-
ties with access restricted to the ascription of a 
common ethnic origin of its participants. In this 
manner, migrant cuisines are usually linked to an 
exclusive economic dimension (Solé & Parella 
2005; Arjona Garrido & Checa 2007). 

The most thoroughly studied Peruvian migration 
movements are those of people from Andean re-
gions to Lima, within Peru itself (Golte & Adams 
1991; Sandoval 2009). Through strong and flexible 
social bonds based on extended family, these mi-
grants develop collective strategies in which they 
re-create an “Andean rationality” characterized by 
internal solidarity and a tendency to establish their 
own businesses (Golte 2001). 

Santiago presents a different case, beginning 
with the origins of the migrants who have settled 
there, as explained above. The networks estab-
lished by them have been of great importance for 
the development of this gastronomic industry. In 
Santiago, we find open, flexible and dynamic net-
works that are not always based on the structure of 
the extended family; Chileans and migrants from 
other Latin American nationalities are often in-
cluded in these networks (Imilan 2014). 

Performing the national through 
celebration

The Independence Day celebration in Peru does 
not have a massive festival character; it is mainly an 
official celebration of state authorities. Some events 
of popular character are rare exceptions, such as a 
parade sponsored by Mr Wong, a supermarket 
chain, in Lima which takes place a week before the 
Holiday's date (Ortemberg 2006). However, it has 
gained a particular meaning for Peruvian migrant 
communities. In the United States, for example, 
which hosts the largest Peruvian migrant commu-
nity, this holiday is celebrated with parades in some 
big cities. The Peruvian Parade follows the form of 
other ethnic parades in the USA, based on the Pu-
erto Rican Day Parade, to which it makes a direct 
reference, or the Saint Patrick's Day Parade of the 
Irish community, which is the oldest of this type of 
events in this country (Berg 2005). On the other 
hand, in Japan, where a large Peruvian community 
resides, the National Holiday is celebrated in salsa 



FENNIA 193: 2 (2015) 235Performing national identity through Peruvian food migration 

music bars catering to the Latin American popula-
tion. In the cities where the Peruvians gather to cel-
ebrate together, Tokyo and Osaka, there is no pub-
lic expression of this festivity (Rossi 2014). Alterna-
tively, in Santiago the celebration has become a 
culinary festival, which lasts three days – a sort of 
carnival, in which food plays a central role both in 
public and private events. The Chilean National 
Holidays are a carnivalesque festivity. During the 
three or more days of celebration, food and music 
have an important presence. The Peruvian celebra-
tion in Santiago seems to mimic the elements of its 
Chilean counterpart.

On July 2013, Peru’s Independence Day was 
celebrated with two large events in central areas 
of the city, where music and food abounded. The 
differences between these two events are many. 
Traditionally, they are organized yearly by event 
producers linked to the Peruvian community and 
to the so-called “nostalgia industry” (product im-
portation, telephone services, etc.). The more tra-
ditional of the two events maintains the character 
of a folk festival, while the second, which is 
younger, is a broader festival of Latin American 
migration in Santiago.

These events should be interpreted as social 
performances, as cultural acts or representations 
of cultural processes in specific contexts, and also 
as cultural agencies (Conquergood 1989). From 
this perspective, they are not just reproductions of 
a social and cultural universe that has been frozen 

in the time-space of origin. They are creative pro-
cesses as well, active in the configuration of identi-
ties based on the new contexts and their need to 
communicate a social and cultural difference to 
“the Other”. Social performances are creative acts 
in which participants play with values and mean-
ings, re-presenting them; they are spaces to ‘think‘ 
through identity relations (Bruner 1986; Geertz 
1986). In fact, the idea of theatricality that accom-
panies the concept of performance does not imply 
that the participants follow a pre-established 
script, simply carrying out a pre-formulated narra-
tive. It is the actors themselves who determine the 
internal organization of the event.

In the more traditional event – which first started 
in 2003 – Santiago's mayor and Peru's ambassador 
are usually present to salute the visitors. It takes 
place on Sunday, in a central park of the city and 
is visited each year by an increasing number of 
Chileans. Approximately one hundred food stands 
offer the traditional fare of Peruvian gastronomy. In 
2012 it was visited by forty thousand people ac-
cording to the organizers.

The stands are harmoniously integrated into the 
park's vegetation, creating open spaces that the 
visitors use to gather together with their family and 
friends (Fig. 2). On one side, there is a huge stage, 
equipped with state-of-the-art concert technology. 
In general the event is very well organized; all the 
details seem to have been considered in the con-
text of such a large event.

Fig. 2. Event “Peruvian Na-
tional Holiday” in Quinta 
Normal park in Santiago de 
Chile.



236 FENNIA 193: 2 (2015)Walter A. Imilan

Each of the stands is a small restaurant, 
equipped with grills and deep fryers. Most of the 
dishes are prepared beforehand, they only need to 
be grilled or fried during the festival. The assigned 
space becomes small between pots, grills, plastic 
containers full of seasoned foods and the team of 
kitchen assistants. At noon, the visitors come in 
and slowly spread around the festival's area, look-
ing for where to have lunch. Around 5 p.m. the 
space is packed. Long queues of visitors crowd 
around the stands.

One of these stands is managed by Trinidad, 
who arrived from Lima 15 years ago. During six 
years, she worked as a housemaid. Later she 
opened a small food business in the city center. In 
her ‘cookery’ she sells lunch and offers other ser-
vices such as shipping services from Santiago to 
Lima; either she or her husband travel themselves 
to deliver the packages. She has been preparing 
the whole week for the sales of this one day, with 
the assistance of five family members who fry, 
bake and sell different dishes. The majority of the 
stand owners are small culinary businessmen and 
businesswomen, who usually manage small cafe-
terias or sell food on the weekends on street mar-
kets, in their own homes or during special events. 
For example, Beatriz, a woman from Trujillo, has 
specialized in homemade dishes that are usually 
served on special occasions and are not available 
at restaurants. She works as a caregiver for elderly 
people during the week and on the weekends she 
offers her catering services. She wishes to consoli-
date a catering business that specializes in tradi-
tional dishes that are hard to find. 

During the day of the event, families play a cen-
tral role in the management of each of the stands. 
Cooks, salespeople and helpers are all part of the 
family. Trinidad receives the support of seven fam-
ilies while Beatriz is helped by five.

The festival, simply called “National Peru Day 
Celebration”, has maintained an evident and une-
quivocal ascription with the Peruvian community 
and is focused on the cuisine and music of the Pe-
ruvian community's popular culture. The food 
stands are represented by small businesspeople 
and their families. Most of the bands playing early 
are non-professional groups of music and dance 
that are active in Chile; the late evening is reserved 
for the stars of Peruvian popular and folk music. 
Without a doubt this event can be considered to 
be purely Peruvian.

The attendance of Chileans to this event has in-
creased over the years according to the partici-

pants themselves. In 2013, Chileans seemed to 
make up a majority of the visitors, identifiable by 
their pronunciation and by some elements in their 
way of dressing. The festivity has transformed a 
space for the migrant community into an event 
meant to reach out to the host society. 

A good deal of information is presented in a 
very didactic way: the food stands offer their prod-
ucts under the assumption that the clients have 
absolutely no knowledge of the greatness of Peru-
vian cuisine. Whether this is so or not, this way of 
presenting the dishes heightens the performative 
character of the event. The lists of ingredients are 
written clearly in large letters, the origin of some of 
them is explained, and cooks and helpers are 
available at all times to give detailed explanations. 
While accompanying some of our informants in 
their stands, we observed that Chileans request the 
dishes that are more common in Santiago's restau-
rants, while the Peruvian customers consume spe-
cial recipes that are not available in this market. 
On this subject, Beatriz, one of our informants, 
comments: “the carapulcra [a stew composed of 
many different meats] takes a long time to prepare, 
that is why Peruvians come here [to the festival]. 
You will not find it elsewhere, and I am very good 
at preparing it”.

Each stand's cooking capacity is impressive. 
Trinidad, for example, has purchased over 40 
chickens, which allows her to sell at least 140 por-
tions. Furthermore, she offers sweet fried cakes 
(picarones), grilled meat and beverages. There is 
no rest amidst the stands, the grilling and frying 
fires are kept at full intensity throughout the day. 

At the center of the field there is a stand selling 
the shirts of the men's national football team and 
the women's national volleyball team. Groups of 
young people buy shirts and then photograph 
themselves dressed up in them. Businesses linked 
to transnational migration are also represented 
with stands. Some examples are pre-paid tele-
phone cards, money transfer and bus transport en-
terprises. Even one of the buses that travel the 
Santiago-Lima route (54 hours) is on exhibition 
right there in the middle of the park. 

In the course of the afternoon a diversity of 
shows is presented on stage, for families and a 
broad audience. As the evening nears, famous Pe-
ruvian performers begin to take to the stage, such 
as Anita Santibáñez who appears in Andean cos-
tumes and is backed up by high-end show produc-
tion. She sings ballads that narrate stories with 
which the migrant community can identify: the 



FENNIA 193: 2 (2015) 237Performing national identity through Peruvian food migration 

feelings of nostalgia for the town left behind, sad-
ness at the thought of family, women who miss 
their children, and other themes. Throughout the 
presentation she greets the people from different 
towns and cities in Peru. To conclude, the audi-
ence sings along with great emotion to the big bal-
lad hits of the evening. 

The second and younger event, which takes 
place in the Recoleta district, is only a thirty minute 
walk away. In 2013, it was its first edition and it 
lasted three days with a very well equipped musi-
cal program, including well-known artists from 
Peru as well as from Colombia and Ecuador (repre-
senting other two important migrant communities 
in Chile). Around forty stands were organized in 
line, on both sides of the soccer field of the Reco-
leta Stadium, located in one of Santiago's districts 
with the highest rate of migrant residents. There was 
a VIP area near the entrance where restaurants from 
Lima set up representational stands, offering their 
dishes together with a special selection of elegant 
restaurants that are located in Santiago. The event's 
name, Perú, mil sabores (Peru, a thousand flavors), 
reflects the land's culinary wealth. The showcased 
restaurants belong to culinary professionals, never-
theless, the massive character of this event is best 
represented by the musical program (Fig. 3). On the 
closing day, more than twenty thousand people 
celebrated in front of a stage of large dimensions.

Musical performances began in the afternoon 
and they extended until late in the evenings. The 

bands are usually a selection of commercially suc-
cessful artists coming from different corners of the 
continent. This transforms the event into a Latin 
American celebration and not just a Peruvian one: 
a celebration of migrants in Santiago.

Each artist salutes his or her people, followed by 
the rest of the audience. The famous ballad singer 
Segundo Rosero, from Ecuador, calls out to those 
coming from cities, such as Quito, Guayaquil and 
Cuenca, to raise their hands and sing along. He 
speaks about love and the nostalgia felt by “all 
those who are far away from home, their family 
and friends”. This Latin American spirit is present 
in each one of the presentations and in the event's 
décor, through the use of flags of many countries 
of Latin America and the presence of a few food 
stands from Colombia, Ecuador and the Domini-
can Republic.

There are stands that specialize in the sale of 
Pisco Sour, a cocktail that has gained great popu-
larity in the city. Its main customers are of Chilean 
origin. Meanwhile, Peruvians quench their thirst 
with beer. The managers of these stands have come 
from Peru exclusively for this festival. They are not 
the only ones, 22 stands share this same situation, 
mostly representing Peruvian restaurants. The most 
successful ones serve grilled meat using techniques 
unknown to Chileans. In this case, the hungry cli-
ents stand in line for up to an hour before being 
served a portion. Food and drink are relatively ex-
pensive, nevertheless, the stands are crowded and 

Fig. 3. Event Perú mil sabores at 
the Recoleta Stadium, 2013, 
Santiago de Chile.



238 FENNIA 193: 2 (2015)Walter A. Imilan

the visitors eagerly consume the different dishes. 
Even before the musical program reaches its high 
point, there is no more food to buy. The event's or-
ganization is similar to that of the older festival. The 
decoration, the way the food is presented and the 
services follow the same pattern. Some days after 
the events we interviewed some of the stand own-
ers of both festivals. In general, they all hoped to 
earn more money, their sales were not as good as 
expected. Additionally, the stand fees are high. 
Consequently they all expressed an interest in try-
ing out the other festival next year. 

Beyond the differences between both events, 
they can be seen as cultural performances. Peruvi-
anness is staged as an identity that expresses itself 
through gastronomy, and gastronomy as an exclu-
sive knowledge of a national community. Peruvian 
gastronomy has been recognized on a global scale 
due to its quality, particularity and sophistication. 
The production and consumption of food develops 
into an event in which an identity experience is 
performed. The differences between regional at-
tributes of great importance within Peru are blend-
ed together in these events. The stands barely 
make any reference to them: a national concep-
tion, unifying and integrating, governs at all times.

It is undeniable that this process of identity re-
creation is supported by an entrepreneurial and 
commercial project. Although there are different 
types of businesspeople involved, it must be em-
phasized that it is the job of amateurs – among the 
migrant population – and not of professionals to put 
such decorative cultural events together. The mi-
grant population adopts sophisticated aesthetics to 
present their stands and dishes. They serve, wear 
uniforms and explain the dishes as if they were pro-
fessionals from high-end restaurants. These aesthet-
ics and manners comply with a high global culinary 
standard, such as the one constructed by the official 
Peruvian discourse. This is a clear example of ordi-
nary people appropriating globalized symbols such 
as those linked to Peruvian gastronomy. In fact, a 
great part of the global dynamics generated around 
Peruvian cuisine has been produced with the aim of 
supporting a sophisticated concept of entrepreneur-
ship, on a high scale structure of investments. The 
hundreds of stand owners who participate in these 
events do not belong to this segment. Nevertheless, 
they make themselves part of this imaginary of the 
Peruvian gastronomic world. What the participants 
do is appropriate the globalized semantics of Peru-
vian cuisine. In these terms, the makers of these cel-
ebrations articulate a sort of popular globalization. 

Lins Ribeiro (2009) uses the concept of popular and 
non-hegemonic globalization to refer to the tactics 
developed by subaltern groups in order to obtain 
benefits from the dynamics of global capitalism, es-
pecially linked to consumption, which have actu-
ally been designed at the core of great economic 
groups and transnational interests. Similarly, we 
might say that in these celebrations of Peruvianness 
the small impresarios make the globalization of Pe-
ruvian cuisine as haute cuisine ‘popular’. In this 
sense, migrants find in the appropriation of this im-
age an opportunity to successfully develop their 
own migratory projects.

Conclusions

The success of a migrant culinary culture is usually 
regarded as the success of ethnic economies. 
Within migration studies, the proliferation of res-
taurants and activities linked to gastronomy are 
usually observed as an indicator, an expression of 
social networks based on the origin of the migrants 
that encourages business activities as incorpora-
tion strategies of the migrant population. Never-
theless, the success of Peruvian gastronomy in 
Chile is not only due to the development of an 
economic strategy of migrant incorporation and 
migrant business culture. It is also due to the fact 
that, as we have seen in detail, food plays a central 
role in this re-configuration of migrant identity via 
the strategic deployment of national markers. In 
this sense, the text has approached three fields that 
meet in a particular manner in the case of the Pe-
ruvian migrant community in Santiago: migration, 
food and national identity.

The idea elaborated in this article is that gas-
tronomy becomes a mediator that assembles vari-
ous processes. On the one hand, there is private 
and governmental support for Peruvian cuisine as 
a globalized product oriented towards a market of 
consumption of haute cuisine, whose innovative 
potential is globally sustained by relying on a par-
ticular national tradition. On the other hand, there 
are Peruvian migrants who, following rigorous 
work and business ethics, offer a local product that 
cannot only be considered exotic or be associated 
with the “nostalgia consumption” of the migrant 
community. They develop a cuisine oriented to-
wards the host society as a commercial strategy 
and as a mechanism of recognition that attempts 
to transcend the historic relationship of discrimi-
nation of Chileans against Peruvians.



FENNIA 193: 2 (2015) 239Performing national identity through Peruvian food migration 

The relationship between gastronomy and na-
tional identity is staged and performed, especially 
during Peru's national holidays. In this context, Pe-
ruvianness is both communicated in and through a 
gastronomic performance which is also a creative 
process, as identity is being re-thought through cu-
linary practices. By performing and staging Peruvi-
anness in gastronomic ways, Peruvian migrants in 
Santiago clearly capitalize on their national origin, 
thus defying the ‘invisibility’ which often charac-
terizes migrants in hostile societies.

The State's role, together with a group of private 
businesses, in the construction of a narrative of na-
tional identity linked to food possesses special 
characteristics that enable us to reflect about the 
importance of National States in the construction 
of these narratives in globalized contexts. First, 
these narratives originate from a commercial inter-
est, adopt the semantics of patrimonial policies 
and are aimed at creating a new market. Secondly, 
they make room for a transnational policy of iden-
tity construction, which concerns itself with the 
territorialization practices of Peruvian communi-
ties abroad. 

This article shows how the public production of 
food migration, anchored in a conception of na-
tional identity, results in a phenomenon of various 
dimensions: from the economic integration and 
transformation of urban landscapes to the influ-
ence on recognition strategies and, above all, the 
renewal of a narrative of national identity that is 
now being re-signified and re-appropriated 
through the experience of transnational migration. 

NOTES

1 Personal communication with Humberto Rod-
ríguez, Professor at the Department of Anthropology 
in Universidad Nacional Mayor San Marcos, Lima – 
September 15th 2013.
2 In http://www.apega.pe/contenidoc/noticiasC4.html.
3 Official video: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=8joXlwKMkrk.
4 On Chinese migration and food practices in Peru, 
see Rodríguez (2006).
5 The team was formed by anthropology students of 
the Alberto Hurtado University, Santiago de Chile, un-
der the direction of the author of the present article.
6 Entrepreneur Gastón Acurio has recently opened 
some restaurants in big cities in the United States of 
America, supported by important investments and 
marketing campaigns. Also, Martín Morales has at-
tracted the attention of lifestyle media to his relative-
ly new restaurant in the Soho neighborhood of Lon-

don. Meanwhile, in Berlin, Enrique Serván works 
towards establishing Peruvian cuisine within the 
city's culinary map.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was supported by FONDECYT N° 
11121539 “La experiencia con la comida peruana en 
Santiago de Chile. Prácticas de identidad y espacio 
de la migración transnacional peruana” (CONICYT-
CHILE).

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