Which Thai-American food writer suggests Pad Thai was invented by Thai Chinese immigrants?

The Thai-American food writer who suggests Thai Chinese immigrants invented Pad Thai is Kasma Loha-unchit.

Her argument begins with the dish’s name. If a food is called “Thai” within Thailand, she reasons, that can suggest it was created by people whose cooking was not originally regarded as fully Thai. In her account, Chinese immigrants adapted stir-fried noodle dishes to local tastes and gave them a Thai-facing identity.

Loha-unchit specifically describes Thai Chinese cooks combining the hot, sour, sweet, and salty flavors favored in Central Thai cuisine with Chinese-style noodle cookery. That makes Pad Thai a fusion food: its national identity is Thai, but its culinary history reflects migration, adaptation, and exchange across Southeast Asia.

This is an explanation, not an uncontested birth certificate. Another influential account places the dish’s creation within the Thai government’s nation-building efforts in the 1930s and 1940s. Those views can overlap: Chinese-derived noodles may have been adapted by immigrant communities and later promoted as a national dish. Kasma Loha-unchit is therefore the canonical answer to this question, not the other Thai-American cookbook authors listed.