Donald Trump thinks about terrorism when he thinks about the countries on the immigration ban–Sudan, Libya, Iran, Somalia, Yemen, Syria. We think: Food in video & print. Delicious Middle Eastern food. It’s the rich culinary legacy of more than a half million immigrants from those six countries who are already in the United States.
Here are six videos that tell the stories of these immigrants, their families and their food in the wake of President Trump’s effort to restrict further immigration. We talk to a deli owner in lower Manhattan whose wife and infant are trapped in the middle of Yemen’s civil war, a restaurateur who wonders how he will staff his kitchens if the immigration ban is approved, and the owner of a Syrian bakery who supports the ban.
In addition, we report stories about immigrants from other countries who have been feeding New Yorkers for decades, from an Italian place on Staten Island to the last remaining kosher kitchen — run now by non-Jews — on the Lower East Side. When people come to New York City, they bring their culinary traditions with them. And though President Trump’s immigration order is still being challenged in the courts, it is already having an impact on that essential part of the city’s history.
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