Ethnic grocery stores have served as a cultural pillar of immigrant communities. While the first ethnic grocery stores—food retailers catering to a migrant or diasporic culture—in the U.S. opened up during the 19th and early 20th centuries in urban minority neighborhoods in major cities, today, such grocery stores have mushroomed around the country, wherever new migrant communities have sprung up. So they grab it.”Culture as ComfortHaving grown up in a Vietnamese immigrant household, Maddie Nguyen felt a sense of familiarity in the Asian grocery stores she researched for her master’s thesis at the Yale School of Public Health. Jawa estimates that his eatery now attracts mostly non-South Asian customers. It’s more of a service.”CORRECTION: This story was updated at 11:30 a.m. PT on Dec. 28, 2022 to note that several major cities, including those not on either coast, had immigrant-run grocery stores in the 19th century.