Arts & Culture

Why tacos are as 'American' as apple pie

By Christina Cala,

Gene Demby, Jess Kung, Courtney Stein, B.A. Parker, Xavier Lopez, Dalia Mortada, Veralyn Williams

Published May 28, 2025 at 10:33 AM CDT

About 1 in 10 restaurants in the United States serve Mexican cuisine. That hunger for chalupas, tacos and more in the U.S. has been longstanding — from the conquistadors' love affair with chocolate, to the classic San Francisco burrito. This week, we're exploring the history of Mexican food in the United States, and asking what it takes for a cuisine to become quintessentially "American."

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Christina Cala

Christina Cala is a producer for Code Switch. Before that, she was at the TED Radio Hour where she piloted two new episode formats — the curator chat and the long interview. She's also reported on a movement to preserve African American cultural sites in Birmingham and followed youth climate activists in New York City.

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Gene Demby

Gene Demby is the co-host and correspondent for NPR's Code Switch team.

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Jess Kung

Jess Kung (they/them) is a production assistant on Code Switch. Previously, they interned with Code Switch and the podcast The Document from KCRW in Santa Monica. They are a graduate of Long Beach State University.

Courtney Stein

Courtney Stein comes to NPR from the New York Times, where she helped to create the weekly podcast First Person. Prior to that, she spent over a decade at WNYC's Peabody Award-winning Radio Rookies, teaching young people to report radio documentaries about issues important to them. While at WNYC, Courtney also helped to pilot the podcast Nancy and was on the team that created the dupont-Columbia award-winning podcast Caught: The Lives of Juvenile Justice, which began as a radio workshop she started in a juvenile detention center in Queens.

B.A. Parker

Xavier Lopez

Xavier Lopez is a producer for Code Switch. He came to NPR from CNN Audio, where he helped produce shows such as Chasing Life with Dr. Sanjay Gupta and the inaugural season of Tug of War. Prior to that, Lopez worked at NPR member station WHYY in Philadelphia, where he worked on shows such as The Pulse, Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane and the daily news podcast, The Why.

Dalia Mortada

See stories by Dalia Mortada

Veralyn Williams

Veralyn Williams (she/her) is a Peabody and Edward R. Murrow award-winning journalist who has been asking hard questions about our world since she picked up her first microphone in 2004. Now she brings her skills (and ears) to her role as executive producer of programming at NPR.