I don’t know what it is that I love about food emporiums. If it’s all the food. The joy of expectation as I construct future meals in my head. Comparing the extra jumbo can of tuna to the small can to see if 3 smalls = 1 large is really saving me 4 pennies. The equality that stems from the reality that we all must eat. The hilarity of the “ethnic foods” aisle with its pasta and tortillas. Spotting food stuffs I’ve never encountered and hypothesizing exactly how I’d turn it into an excellent meal (or a failed meal on the way to an excellent meal). In SA, trying to read the aisle names in Afrikaans.
All I know is that I love the grocery store. So much so that when I was in Pretoria I used to go there to calm down even if I just needed a loaf of bread. I can literally spend hours in a grocery store over a loaf of bread…ask anyone who has had to give me a ride to/from the grocery store.
My first real grocery spree was a few weeks ago at a store in Waukegan. It was another glorious piece sewn into the homecoming quilt. In Waukegan we have your usual big box chain grocery stores but we also have a number of fruit markets that cater to the large Latino population in town. They are just as big as the chain stores, but I think more independently owned/operated. I absolutely love these stores: cheap produce, weird vegetables, signs in Spanish advertising specials on pechuga (chicken breast), lechuga (lettuce), and leche (milk). Plus there is usually a ton of food items I’ve never seen before or even heard of. All in our humble town. Waukegan has between 100 and 150,000 people and we have about 4 of these “fruit markets.”
Besides an overwhelming calm, a few thoughts passed through my head as I marvelled at Honduran coffee, the myriad types and brands of asian noodles, and Mexican sweets and sodas the likes of which I’d never seen but must be some-kid-some-where’s favorite splurge item. But mostly I thought “man these grocery store people really have it figured out.”
In the USA I’m lead to believe that many Americans sternly disapprove of immigrants. “Why can’t they speak English?” “They are taking our jobs and government services.” And so on. I’ve heard surprisingly similar sentiments in South Africa directed at the immigrant populations there. The USA wants to build a super wall on the border between USA/Mexico to keep our neighbors to the south out. I’m sure we will learn the hard way, if the wall is put up, that no wall is too big to keep out those that want in. People brave hostile oceans on plastic rafts to get here…there’s no “Great Wall” that can extinguish that hope. The allure of the American Dream is too great. We’ve marketed it all over the world, yet we still want to keep folks from the last step. I don’t get it, but maybe it’s all part of keeping demand high. The unattainable goal. All I know is that it hasn’t taken our country long to forget those words inscribed in stone on the Statue of Liberty:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
But these grocery store people have it figured out. Instead of whining about how immigrants pollute what it means to some people to be a “true American” (whatever that means) the grocery store operators have taken advantage of the situation and given people what they want. A little taste of home to nourish the journey toward the American Dream. It’s genius and I’m sure it turns a pretty penny.
I'm under the impression that the booming immigrant population in the
Until next time
Keep the peace and spread it gently
Love, Lynsee
