In many immigrant homes, the automatic dishwasher is the last frontier. Long after new arrivals pick up football, learn the intricacies of the multiplex and the DMV and develop a taste for pizza, they resist the dishwasher. . . .
If they have a dishwasher — and many do, because it is standard equipment in most homes — it becomes a glorified dish rack, a Tupperware storage cabinet or a snack-food bin. It's never turned on.
Officials at appliance companies have noticed: Sears doesn't even highlight the appliances in its ads in Spanish-language media.
It's a quirk in the assimilation process that baffles social
scientists. "It's really striking," said Donna Gabaccia, who studies immigration and culinary history at the University of Minnesota. In the home, "technology is generally embraced by women. Certainly in terms of technology, their homes don't look that much different from Middle American homes."
... The dishwasher is a U.S. invention, and outside the United States, Canada and Western Europe, they are uncommon. In most countries, people cannot afford them; if they could, then they already have maids, who can do the dishes by hand.
I remember being bitter in middle school when Mom got rid of the dishwasher to make room for more shelf space. Cuz I had to do dishes as chores!
3 comments:
i kind of like doing dishes. is that weird?
This is true in Japan too, but not for servant reasons (maybe space?) - my girlfriend had never used one, and the dishwasher in my apartment came with a special guide showing how to load it.
I like doing dishes, too, but I think it might be because I did them much as a teenager that it was almost brainwashing (kind of like how I convinced my little sister that she liked brown M&Ms best by repeatedly eating all of her brightly-colored ones for her...)
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