Last Sunday I found myself in the "ethnic" supermarket of Fiesta. My mother asked me to take her because she’s not very pleased with the fact that I buy cans of beans to fry instead of cooking them from scratch.
The place was packed. Old timey upbeat mariachi music was flowing from the audio system, music probably from the forties and fifties; songs that many of the shoppers would recognize but probably couldn’t place in time or name. Of course, I could as I found myself singing along, since I was a faithful listener and buyer of this Mexican music in my early years. (I even thought that if my two legs were working legs, I would start to zapatear then and there).
Then I saw guavas from Mexico for sale and I made a beeline for them. As I was touching them to gauge their ripeness, I saw this Indian woman looking in my direction and all of the sudden I fel a deep sense of ownership about “my” Mexican guavas and I felt that I was not willing to share their sunny color with her. As she walked toward me, I got in my “Defend the Guavas” stance and then the Indian woman dressed in the traditional attire from her country, smiled ever so sweetly at me, stretched her arm and picked a pomegranate from the bin next to my guavas. I began breathing again, and even smiled back at her. Got to say the pomegranates were indeed tempting, enormous and a steal at $1.69 each.
I realized how petty I was becoming so I stepped back to observe my surroundings. I saw my elderly mother some steps away busy filling a bag with happy red tomatoes, lost in her own delight at finding herself surrounded by so much color, abundance and the fact that we could pay for basically whatever she fancied. As I stood there I saw the employees at the meat counter cheerfully bantering as if they were happy to be there on a Sunday, working. Shoppers were of all colors, even white folks were there, enjoying the plethora of color and smell, looking a bit, but not much, out of place (finally we all look for good deals, no matter our color). But most of us were definitely of the Latino/Hispanic persuasion.
I felt a surge of nostalgia starting in my gut and expanding to my chest, filling me with joy, a sweet sadness, and pride too. Here were people from so many different backgrounds, and I could see the corn shucks for the tamales, I could see guavas, pomegranates, papayas, mangoes, chayotes (a pear- almost heart-shaped green veggie especially delicious in chicken and beef soups), tunas (cacti pear), the tomatillos, a complete aisle dedicated to tortillas and tostadas, the sour cream from El Salvador and from Mexico, the chili powder for our fruity pico de gallo. And I thought yes, this is the produce I would find in the street markets back home, I would walk with my bags among my people (very much like the ones here at Fiesta) and I would barter away with the merchants trying to agree on a better price for me for the kilo of tomatoes and potatoes and Serrano peppers. And I realized that none of this is now weird or awkward (maybe the bartering) to any of the white people there under the same roof with me. As I felt the tears of homesickness come, I filled a small bag with guavas and hurriedly walked over to my mother. After all, I was only there because of her. Me, assimilated me, shops at Target.
No comments:
Post a Comment