"Tortilla Soup" 2001 film

I had never seen or even heard of this movie before, so I was excited to watch something new. This movie really highlights the distinct features of latin American culture. They value family; the family in the film has dinner every Sunday together. They also value food; the dinner's served are always fresh and extravagant. The father uses traditional Mexican ingredients in his cooking and he is also a professional chef, just to emphasize how good his dinner's must truly be. A major part of this movie is focused around the three daughters, all grown women, breaking out of the traditional roles their Mexican culture would have had them follow and finding themselves in the unconventional America that their father does not see as valuable. Their father was a Mexican immigrant, so these three women are first generation Americans. Karen and the youngest daughter are the type to steer away from their Mexican traditions, while the other daughter, Lilita, is very strict and traditional. The movie takes Karen from being the rebellious type in the beginning, to turning down her job in Spain to stay home and be with her family. Lilita does the opposite in the film; she starts as the one that follows all the rules and then she meets Orlando and gets married in Las Vegas, an action totally out of character from the person we meet in the beginning. In the end we learn that family is still the most important value among these people even if it is not the traditional Mexican family, and families are brought together best over a really great dinner.

A culinary experience of my own

Not Your Typical Tuesday

I plan my Tuesdays around one, and one thing only. It has been a part of my weekly routine for a few months now, and I like to call it “Taqueria Tuesday.” For those unfamiliar with this term it simply translates to the fact that I eat Taqueria del Sol every Tuesday of every week after I get off work no matter the circumstances. On this particular Tuesday, June 17^th, I woke up and went about my daily routine. I wake up, shower, make coffee, scrounge for something to eat, and relax until my class at 11:45. Normally I manage to eat before going to class, but on this day I woke up late and threw off my entire schedule. The harsh reality of knowing I would be running on an empty stomach from class through work until five set in as I made my way out the door. It looked like the start to a pretty rough day, but at least I knew I would have Taqueria del Sol to help me eat my way into a full-bodied food coma when 5:15 came around, or so I thought.

It was 2:00 and I had been at work for around 30 minutes. I work at a local law office for a lawyer who just so happens to be on vacation this week, so my days consist of reading and answering the occasional phone call. Around 2:00 was when it really started to hit me. It came from somewhere deep inside my gut like a wrench grinding open an old, rusted bolt. From this point on I knew the rest of my day would be spent in anguish, floating somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness, due to extreme hunger pains. If I had had anything to focus my attention on it might have lessened the pain and maybe even quieted the growls, but I had absolutely nothing to do alone, in an office, except read Kurt Vonnegut’s “The Sirens of Titan” and stare hopelessly at the clock.

I then went down the dangerous path of daydreaming that often comes when you’re feeling on the brink of starvation; the daydream of what food will save you from your misery. I started imagining the crispness of the chicken in a fried chicken taco, its secret heavenly sauce and freshly diced lettuce and tomatoes wrapped in a simple tortilla. I could see myself pouring the salsa carnita along the crispy strip of chicken, adding a deep, bold, smokey flavor to the mix. It all came together and I lifted the taco to my mouth and took a bite, chewing slowly as to absorb all the flavors. It was pure bliss.

At this point I’m pretty sure I snapped out of it due to the fact I was drooling at my desk and gazed longingly at the screen, practically begging the minutes to pass by.

Three hours and however many chapters later, I was finally free. I turned off the lights, grabbed my phone and purse, and locked up the office door. The very instant I heard the click of the knob into the socket my throat clenched, my heart stopped, I was overcome with regret and almost completely knocked off my feet by my idiocy. I had left my keys sitting inside, right on my desk, right through the door that I had just locked. I was absolutely befuddled. Here I was, locked out without my keys, to an office whose owner was on vacation, with a stomach that was minutes away from crawling up my throat and strangling me. I turned to the only person I knew that could save me at this point. “Siri, where is the nearest locksmith?” My little robot went to work and brought up a few different links. I called the first one I saw and a woman answered and said she would send someone over in approximately 10 minutes. The next 10 minutes for me were spent sitting there on the office steps with my head in my palms having accepted that this was just “one of those days.”

A man in an all tan jumpsuit, like one you would imagine someone working under the hood of a car would wear, walked up with a few small tools in his hands. “Are you Mary?” the stranger asked. “Yes,” I replied, “that’s me, and it’s this door right here.” I pointed in the direction of the lock that stared at me in an almost condescending way.  He fiddled with his little metal tools and in about two minutes the door was open. I ran inside and grabbed my keys; they were sitting right on my desk where I had forgotten them. I gave the stranger my card and paid my expenses, hating myself for being so forgetful the whole time. When I saw the total cost of this two-minute procedure I almost threw up, and that would’ve been quite a feat considering I had nothing in my stomach. I won’t go into details but just for future reference and knowledge in case you are locked out somewhere: unlocking corporate buildings costs far more than you would imagine, my personal suggestion is to break a window and pay for that instead.

            I was finally in my car, somewhere lost between anger and desperation, and I had come to the sad realization that because of the hunk of money I had just lost even the two dollar and thirty-nine cent chicken tacos were out of my price range. I drove back home feeling defeated, trying to take my mind off Taqueria and focus on what I was actually going to put into my body, because having food at this point was absolutely essential. I went home and checked my pantry. I had a box of Rotinni pasta and a can of tomatoes. I will admit I’ve never been a very good chef, but I thought I could conjure up something at least somewhat edible. I began to boil the pasta and put the can of tomatoes into a small pot. I searched around for spices and anything that seemed like it would add to my culinary creation. I hit gold when I found an onion and chopped up a good bit into the tomatoes. Then I found basil pesto and added a few scoops of that as well. With a little salt and pepper and a few dashes of oregano with a spoonful of minced garlic, my work was well on its way. I let the mixture simmer and the flavors vaporized into smells and I thought that maybe dinner wouldn’t end up so bad after all.

            By the time the pasta was done and the sauce had released its various aromas, both of my roommates had emerged from their rooms and made their ways to the kitchen driven by their curious noses that were forcing them to investigate the sensational smell down the stairs. I mixed the two dishes, the pasta and the sauce, into one large bowl and piled on the Parmesan cheese. Both of my of my roommates stood staring for a moment before diving towards the bowl to help me devour the heaping pile of pasta before us.

            We all sat down together and enjoyed one of those original creations that only exists in the kitchen of a poor college student who scrounges to make something edible with a weird conglomeration of ingredients from a practically empty fridge, and it was great. I wouldn’t call it a culinary masterpiece at all, and I still wouldn’t go so far as to say “I can cook,” but I did realize that I can get by, and pretty well at all. The aromas of basil pesto, onion, garlic, and Parmesan cheese filled our house as we all sat down together for a few good episodes of Family Guy. It had been a rough day at that, but the meal to finish it off really brought things together. Not every Tuesday can be a “Taqueria Tuesday,” and sometimes its better to scrounge with what you’ve got and make the best of it with the people around you.

Simon Ortiz "How to Make a Good Chili Stew"

"How to Make a Good Chili Stew" not only gives an in depth description of the process of making a traditional Native American stew, but also shows how cooking in this culture is a kind of ritualistic practice. The Speaker longs for the traditional ingredients that were used in the past but are no longer available to her because she was removed from the land she had always known as home. Thinking of Native Americans as a "ritualistic" people is a common stereotype: we can all conjure up an image in our minds of a tribe dancing around a fire in elaborate feather headdresses and paint chanting warrior cries. This recipe and Ortiz's frequent interjections are a look into the daily lives of a culture and people most of us are unfamiliar with. And we find that, indeed, Native Americans are a ritualistic culture but not in the way the majority and the media have made them out to be. They take the time to appreciate things many people are blind to. In the recipe under the caption Further Directions to Make it Good the Speaker advises the reader to "Look all around you once in a while" and goes into further description of her physical surroundings, in this case La Plata Mountains in Southern Colorado. Right here we can see that for this culture cooking was more than just that, it was a time to soak in and recognize your presence and place among nature.

Thomas King, "You're Not the Indian I Had in Mind"

This story deals with the idea of "identity" and "authenticity," and what it means to be "Indian" in the American consciousness. King is mixed, only part Native American. However during his life and through his experience he struggled with his identity because he was either being ridiculed for not looking like the stereotypical, Wild West style Indian, or he was playing the part and being praised for it. I must admit I have always imagined Native Americans in my mind as the images in old photographs, the tipis and headdresses and Appaloosa horses. But this is a social construct we have created as outsiders to try and section off this group of people from what we consider to be "the norm." We force Natives to fit into a certain mold of leather, lassos, and fringe because this is what we want the "Indian" to be, we want the race we created through media and Hollywood to exist and we have a hard time accepting that it is a construct and that the "Indian" as we know it is not an accurate depiction of what our Native people are. Will Rogers is mentioned in the story as the type of Indian King wants to photograph because he appears white. No one would know Rogers was a Native American by his appearance, and that is the statement King decides to make with his photographic expedition; he decides to show America the side of the Native American they have been ignoring, the side that looks like the rest of us and walks and talks like the rest of us, without all the cliches trailing behind.

Eduardo Machado, "Tastes like Cuba" (excerpts)

This story is different from the other hispanic literatures covered so far. The speaker is a young, well off eight or so year old.  The beginning is all about food, except this child did not grow up in poverty. The the descriptions of the food are so detailed they almost come to life. The way the speaker describes the morning routine and the process his grandmother used to make cafe con leche reveal how essential food was to the family, but also how sacred it was. Every meal was like some type of ritual. All family members, adults and children, take 3 hours off during the hottest part of the day during lunch, so they have time to eat, rest, and often take a nap. These people were well-off enough to enjoy leisure time. There were also exotic foods and delicacies galore; something much different from the other hispanic readings we have done. Most people think Cuba in the late 1950s and think of The Revolution, and this excerpt allows you to understand how happy and well-off some of the population was before the Revolution, especially the children who had no concept of war. These children were terrified to leave Cuba for America, a place distance and different from the lives and foods they knew as their own.

Junot Diaz "Aguantando"

aguantar: to endure, stand
The title of this piece, "Aguantando", means enduring or standing. I looked this up after reading the short story and it is a fitting title because the young boy who is telling the story has to endure a life of poverty and the absence of his father. The ending of this story is especially sad because Rafa and his younger brother are imagining the return of their father and what it will be like-- except their father is never coming back. He moved to the States to work 9 years earlier and never came back for his family, as he had promised he would. This happens in society today. Men in Latin America leave their families to go find jobs in the States with the hope of one day being able to afford to bring all their loved ones to the States as well; this story is an example of a failed attempt at just that. The father abandoned his family for his life in North America showing how poverty can rip apart any family-- even in latino culture where family is valued so highly.

Judith Cofer's "Corazon's Cafe"

Family. Tradition. Food. So far in all of the latino works I have read either one, or all, of these things have played a major role in the layout of the story. Corazon's Cafe contains all three. Family and tradition are closely connected; for example it was not out of the ordinary for Corazon to marry Manuel at 18 in Puerto Rico-- it was traditional for girls to marry young and begin the process of running a household. Food is also tied into the mix of tradition and family because latino culture values it so highly. Immigrants living in El Building come to Corazon's Cafe because they can buy their traditional foods in an atmosphere that reminds them of home. This is the second Judith Cofer piece I have read, the first being The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica, that contains a central idea: a maternal figure, running a latino shop selling traditional foods to Mexican Puerto Rican, Cuban, etc., immigrants to create a sense of "home." Since Judith Cofer is Puerto Rican I think its easy to see from this that family, tradition, and food are all highly valued in latino culture.

Judith Cofer's "The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica"

"The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica"
Ars: (latin) it is art to conceal art; true art conceals the means by which it is achieved (dictionary.com)
This poem explores the theme of connectivity through cultural heritage that latino immigrants experience. The deli serves as a place immigrants can go to feel at home by being surrounded with familiar foods and a familiar language, spoken Spanish. Its the only little chunk of cultural heritage these latino customers have in the U.S. That's why even though this deli may be more expensive than other options latinos still choose to go there. The deli owner faces the task of "conjuring up products from places that now exist only in their hearts" for her customers. This means she is the one that keeps their latino heritage and tradition alive; without her they would not have the comfort of eating latino food and hearing Spanish on a day to day basis. This poem clearly portrays the "multicultural" America we live in. 

Thoughts on Gary Soto's poems & short story "Like Mexicans"

The Estonian Comes to Dinner:  Soto opens this poem stating "Again I dream..." and then goes into describing a meal that could only exist in his imagination because of his economic stance. This poem sheds light on the poverty stricken culture of many Mexican and Mexican American families. I loved the last two lines: "let the day end and us begin, the fork, the knife, the plate, all useless." This is very powerful imagery to me because he is waking up from his dream of a wonderful dinner filled with cheese, and wine, and bread to the reality that is poverty and that has no use for kitchen utensils.

Oranges: the recurring theme of poverty is present in this poem as well. Soto describes his first outing with a girl at the age of 12. He has two oranges in his pocket, one of which he would have been glad to offer the girl. Instead they end up at a drugstore staring down the candy aisle. She picks out a chocolate bar and he pulls out his change. The chocolate costs a dime, but he only has a nickel to offer. He hands the saleslady an orange and a nickel and she looks at him understandingly and gives him the chocolate. This turn in the poem is very hopeful. 

Salt: again we see this recurring theme of poverty in Mexican culture. This young boy is sent out to find food (some sort of fish or frog) for his family. He fails to find any but on the walk back home him and his friend enter a cow field and lick the cow's salt rock. This shows just how hungry these people are-- willing to belittle themselves to the state of a cow just to receive the smallest amount of nourishment and flavor. He closes with "And what was lost, the salt gave back." Even though this poem is horribly desperate that last line instills a bit of hope in the reader-- something that the young boy needs to carry on. 

Like Mexicans: I really enjoyed this short story. Basically it's about a young Mexican man from a poor family that falls in love with an Asian girl named Carolyn. His grandmother had told him to marry a Mexican girl for a number of reasons, but she left out her main reason which was that he needed to marry someone of his same class, someone poor. He goes to Carolyn's house and realizes she is poor as well and that he can marry her without her worrying about money. What really stood out to me in this story was in the final paragraph. At Carolyn's house there are kittens clawing at the screen window begging for food-- Soto compares them to Mexicans. He mentions cats clawing to get food and cats being shot down with squirt guns. This is a powerful allegory to how Mexicans are treated because they, like the cats, only want food and a better chance at life, but there is a "screen" in the way. This screen could symbolize many things: the hardships of poverty, the struggle to climb out of poverty, the U.S. border, etc. 

"Food Habits & Racial Thinking"

To me one of the most interesting parts of this article is Purcell's recipe for "Chili Con Carne"-- a dish stemming from Mexican culinary traditions but written in the dialect of "Aunt Priscila"who was representative of a female African American cook. The fact that this recipe was written by a white woman, about a dish that was rendered as "traditional Mexican food" by the majority, in the dialect of a Southern black cook shows how white cultural imperialism infiltrated the food industry. Americans enjoy foreign culinary practices, but only once they have stripped them of what made them "foreign" in the first place to make them appeal to the regular American appetite which is perceived as what should be considered normal by the majority. Anyways, I for one will never eat Taco Bell, but I was astonished to learn that cheddar cheese was not part of traditional Mexican cuisine.

"White Privilege"

Peggy McIntosh's article "White Privilege" was relatable because I, too, am a white female. So obviously I was able to resonate with many of the points she made. I think that "white privilege" is behind-the-scenes styled racism. But the two questions this article brought to my mind are:

1. why does it exist in our so called "equal" society? 
2. does this problem have a solution or is racism a part of humanity? and if there is a solution, what is it?  

My natural reaction to question 1 was that "white privilege" exists in our society because America is actually just now starting to treat minorities (and women) the same way white men have been treated since our nation's founding. The Civil Rights movement happened in the 60s: that is not even a generation ago. Obviously old traditional habits/opinions have not died out completely. I believe that they will, and I believe we are heading in that direction, but it will take more than just one generation before we can master true equality. 

I didn't have such a clear, concrete answer to question two... But for some reason I feel like racism is part of humanity since it has been around since the beginning of man. In some way shape or form a certain group has always been discriminated against because they are deemed as "different" (whether it be race, gender, ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexuality, etc). Because we have never known an age with essentially no racism at all, is it even possible? Racism may never be fully extinguished but I believe there are ways for it be lessened. When it comes to white privilege, for example, it would take whites stepping up and recognizing the fact that they are being undeservingly rewarded over their counterparts. This is tough though because how many people are actually going to take steps towards harming their own well being and taking away privileges they have come to believe are their unalienable rights.