Kathleen Furore
Mrs. Molina and her tortilla-wrapped chorizo and eggs. That was the first thing I thought of when I started writing the cover story for this issue. For the first few years of both our boys’ lives, Mrs. Molina was a constant presence — more an adopted abuela than the babysitter we had originally asked her to be. Her tortilla-wrapped chorizo and eggs were often waiting for me when I dropped our sons off before I headed to work. She didn’t want me to go hungry (not that there was a chance that that was going to happen!).
That made me think about food as a currency of love — one that would not exist in such rich and diverse abundance without the immigrants who brought their recipes to the country that for them held so much promise.
My Italian aunts...my Latvian mother-in-law...the Molina family... the Rashids (the refugee family from Malaysia we met almost 10 years ago) — all have shared the foods of their homelands, using it in times of celebration and sadness to convey, in some small way, how much they care.
And that brings me to the outrage I and most everyone in my universe feels at the abhorrent, inhumane treatment immigrants are now experiencing. My outrage has been compounded by the fact that they’re often targeted in restaurants, where food brings so many people together.
Mexican restaurants are a prime target. That agents in Minnesota ate in a Mexican restaurant before returning to abduct workers there (see our news item on page 6) was beyond reprehensible... and it’s what made me decide to take off the kid gloves and enter the political fray.
There is little, it seems, we can do to stop ICE in its tracks; speaking out is my attempt at showing solidarity with the hard-working immigrants and those working to protect them.
If you have stories about what’s happening in your restaurant/ your community that you would like to share, please email me at kfurore@restmex.com. My hope is that in the future, there will be no stories about ICE abuses left to tell.
Stay safe, stay positive...and continue uplifting your community by serving the Mexican and Latin food that has always been and will always be the culinary currency that brings friends and families together.
Click here to go to the next article, Are You Ready for Increased ICE Raids?