The University of Kentucky is making dreams come true one taco at a time by offering an undergraduate class called “Taco Literacy: Public Advocacy and Mexican Food in the US South.”
“This class allows our students to explore the issues of immigration, inequality, workers, intercultural communication, and literacy through the prism of food,” Steven Alvarez, an assistant professor, who is apart of the school’s Writing Rhetoric, and Digital Studies department said in an interview with Munchies.
Class work for the course includes studying the cultural significance of Mexican food, writing restaurant reviews, and eating tacos, of course. Assigned texts for the course include articles like OC Weekly editor Gustavo Arellano’s “Taco USA,” and “Tortillas: A Cultural History” – a book based solely on the history of tortillas.
And the students couldn't be more excited:
Obviously taking the new taco literacy course next fall.
— Madison Meredith (@maddiem1234) January 28, 2016
Happy to announce I'll be attending Kentucky University to study taco literacy.
— HarshMarsh (@HarshMarsh14) January 28, 2016
“The students that are taking my class right now range in what they expect to do,” Alvarez said. “My hope, at the very least, is to have my students build more connections with the community and help with public writing – things like helping out small Mexican restaurants with menus and website design if they’d like,” Alvarez continued.
“This course will make you savvy when it comes to rhetoric. Sure, there is no one way to become a writer, but I give my students tools to think of themselves as writers and build portfolios full of writing to use for the rest of their life.”