Racisme: Parte Deux

Where I live, people sell food on the street. It gets dark outside, and they park their food cart out in the middle of a dirt corner and set up plastic tables and chairs, and suddenly this once-dead corner is a hot spot.

During the day, men (always men, now that I think about it) ride down the street selling bags of fried pork rinds. It's been a while since I've seen a man with popsicles, but in the town where I grew up, we didn't have men with pork rinds; we had men with paletas. My favorite paletas are strawberry and lime (just water; no milk).

Just a few blocks from my house is a Mexican panaderia and cafe, and while I was walking to Starbucks a few weeks ago for the internet, I passed it and thought, "Maybe I should stop." I still had a mile to go to get to Starbucks, and I was a little motivated by the exercise, but honestly, I didn't have the energy to try a new place.

While reviewing burritos last year, I went down to little Mexico (as I like to call a particular part of town down the street from my school) and walked into a place that I'd always driven by, and looked like it sold food. Wow. They did not want me there. One of the other customers asked me if I was a teacher, because I looked like one. There's no way around that one-that is what I look like, for no other reason than that I'm white and wear glasses. I ordered a rice and bean burrito, and that's what I got: rice and beans. It makes me sad to think about it. There wasn't even any salsa. They just wanted me to get out of there. I made them uncomfortable.

So today, even though this is now my actual neighborhood for the second time, I still feel a bit weird going into a new place by myself, like that panaderia, or a food cart on the side of the road (but not the pork rinds man, because I don't eat meat) not because I'm afraid, but because I don't know what the cultural expectations are. It isn't right that the city is racially and economically segregated, but it is, and I don't want to step on anyone's toes. Even if I dressed and acted differently, I don't think I could ever fit in.