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“Through Their Eyes” Digital Ethnography Series: Multicultural Thanksgiving

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In 2019, the Strategy team at AMP went on a mission to better understand marketers' most sought-after consumer segments. Each week, individuals from these segments took over @AMP_Agency Instagram stories to give us a peek into their world as part of our digital ethnography series, “Through Their Eyes.”

To wrap up the series, we took the opportunity to celebrate different cultures, and saw Thanksgiving from the perspective of Alicia's family, from Guangzhou in China, Dana's family, from Calabria in Italy, and Andronaelle's family, from Les Cayes in Haiti. 

If you surveyed all Americans and asked them what the most American holiday was, our bets are on either the Fourth of July – naturally, it's our birthday – or Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a celebration of the most American Americanisms: apple pie, lively family debates, and the NFL. Yet, we must not forget that our country is projected to be “minority white” within the next 25 years, and the very definition of what it means to be American looks quite different depending on who you ask. So, on the day that maxes out on all things America, we decided to celebrate what might be the most American Americanism of all: our diversity and our rich, beautiful variety of cultural traditions.

We encountered mouth-watering food.

While all of our participants still made a turkey, there was also incredible, delectable variety in the accompanying dishes served. Alicia's family ate prime rib, grilled octopus, and steamed shrimp. Dana's family had salad with homemade vinegar and drank homemade wine, and Andronaelle's family had mac and cheese as well as traditional black rice.

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Top to  Bottom: Alicia's mom made comforting doughy rice ball soup; Andronaelle's auntie utilized traditional Haitian seasonings in all dishes; Dana's family tossed salad in homemade vinegar.

Matriarchs were celebrated.

All of our participants took time in their Instagram Stories to honor the matriarch of the family. Alicia's family made sure to cook their grandmother's favorite dish, pork knuckle and lotus stew. Andronaelle wrote about her Auntie Marie, “the matriarch and the best cook in the family,” and many of Dana's Stories featured her nonna, who kept busy peeling potatoes, greeting guests, and playing games. (We'll get to the games below!)

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 Top to  Bottom: Alicia's family makes sure to cook their grandmother's favorite dish; Everyone gathers at Auntie Marie's immediately after breakfast; Nonna and Dana share a selfie

Fun was had. A lot of fun. 

Most of all, what we could truly sense through these Stories was the sheer fun, and dare we say craziness, that ensues when large families reunite for Thanksgiving. For Alicia's family, even the morning food prep is made fun, as they make a tradition out of picking up dim sum takeout from Chinatown each Thanksgiving morning. Andronaelle's family took a big group photo and had the little ones pose for pictures. Dana even convinced two nonnas at the party to play a round of beer pong – the nonnas surprised with a sneaky bounce play that forced their opponents to take two cups off the table.

TFun1TFun2TFun3Top to Bottom: The fun starts early at Alicia's over morning dim sum takeout; Thanksgiving is a time to compare how much the cousins have grown at Andronaelle's; Two Italian nonnas were shockingly skilled at beer pong

And so our “Through Their Eyes” series concludes. 

This year, we started our Instagram ethnography series with Gen Z college students, moved into soon-to-be-wed millennials, and then millennial moms. Each time, walking in a segment's shoes for the day revealed surprising insight that's useful to brands: Gen Z kept themselves dizzyingly busy and are motivated by hustle, soon-to-be-wed's use food as a vehicle for expressing and celebrating the love they have for their partners, and millennial moms have much more of a sense of humor than marketers would lead you to believe. 

Yet it's perhaps fitting that we ended with multicultural Thanksgiving celebrations, and the reminder that despite how different we ensured our participants were – Chinese, Italian, and Haitian – what came through most strongly were the values that we all share, despite “segment” or ethnicity or age or what have you: an obsession with food, a respect for our elders, and the chaotic fun that ensues when we're all together.

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