598 Dexter Street
Central Falls, RI 02863-2604
"Goool" yelled the
announcer. Eyes watched, but hearts were uninterested. Nothing
could break the men’s concentration. Not the soccer match and definitely not the Patriots game on the adjacent TV. The minute hand met its counterpart on the
old style clock. Anxiety rose. It was noon: time for the Sunday telenovela. Almost mechanically, their
heads turned to find out if Maria would have the audacity to kiss Juan Carlos
after making love to his twin brother.
We
had hit the jackpot. Bumping Latin music and speeding Spanish
conversations set the ambiance for the perfect “authentic” Colombian
meal. A whopping 4.5 miles away from Brown’s campus stood El Paisa. We
were greeted with a kind “?Hola, como están?” The waitress showed us to our
seats without a word of English even crossing her mind. Finally, a place in which we were treated
like the pueblo.
We
started our meal with some milk-based drinks, flavors ranging from tamarind to
pineapple to the classic horchata
(rice milk). We know, you’re thinking that horchata is more common in places like Mexico and Ecuador than in
Colombia. You aren’t? Well we are!
Next
came the appetizers. Empanadas, tostadas, arepas. The holy
trinity. Empanadas are fried dough fritters filled with meat or vegetables
and potatoes. Tostadas are the deep fried brother of the tortilla, topped
with anything and everything delicious. Arepas are somewhere in between
corn bread and pancakes.
And so began a feast that might
make us Dudes seem gluttonous. Plates at El Paisa easily feed two heads (and cost between 6 and 12 dollars, A good ol’ FSFW). The six
of us started with four platters of steak. Some flank, some sirloin, but all
thinner cuts. Next came a whole chicken atop mountains of rice, beans,
lettuce, pickled onions and radishes, more rice, and more beans. The sixth
platter boasted a large tongue.
We left the restaurant full to the
brim and had plenty to take home. Yet, something felt off. Though El Paisa was Colombianish, it reminded
us too much of Venezuelan, Mexican, and Guatemalan restaurants in Atlanta and
Providence.
Sir Merriam and Master Weber define “Latino”
as: a
person of Latin-American origin living in the United States.
We pondered this definition of “
Latino, “ a word unique to the North American English language. Latinos only
exist outside of Latin America. The Latino identity was created because Latin
American immigrants share cultural similarities. Among those are language and,
of course, food. And indeed those similarities may unify Latin American
immigrants and their descendants under the label Latino.
The Dudes of Food interpretation of
“Latino”:
Parts of Latin America eat
burritos with rice, beans, cheese and meat. Other parts eat it with only
meat, cilantro, and onions. In the Land of the Free, something was created
that both groups could call home: a burrito with all of those ingredients.
Simple, clear, concise,
delicious. Call Webster, because we just defined cultural hegemony through
a burrito.
Perhaps our Colombian hotspot is
in fact Latino, and perhaps this categorization isn't negative. We were served plates of salad, rice, and
beans with a piece of grilled meat and an arepa on the side. The arepa
is a traditional Colombian and Venezuelan side, but the brown refried
beans more closely resembled those of northern Mexico. If we had not known better, we would have thought we were
eating a Mexican or Venezuelan lunch plate.
Our meal illustrates that the
Latino identity at times overpowers any single nationality. Did hegemonic
United States culture push people into becoming Latinos, or did solidarity
empower them? Perhaps a bit of both.
Latinos want a taste of home. A
taste of the United States. A taste of something that is shared by many Latin
American cultures. They want a plate of rice, beans, meat,
and plantains. The emergence of the “proud Latino,” champion of an horchata and
chili-cheese nachos with “guac,” is a phenomenon that we are experiencing first
hand. Observe it. Take it in. Eat it.
Gasps surround us! Not because of
our thought provoking hypotheses, but because Maria did in fact kiss Juan
Carlos.
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