So, this morning I started to write a big long post on immigration patterns in New York, all very nicely contextualized by a super-pleasant bicycle trip to Red Hook for tacos on the beisból field last weekend. But the more I wrote the later it got, my plans to go to the gym got pushed aside, my plans to be early to work so I could go to the gym at lunch were foiled, and my juicy little idea became an unfocused rambling with no really good points or thoughts, which made way too much out of one juicy little steak and cactus taco. Sometimes things happen this way.
My thoughts on immigration in the Big Apple are no more coherent now than they were this morning. Please accept this list instead:
• There are not that many Mexicans in New York.
• PR and the DR take center stage.
• There are some Mexicans in Red Hook who make great tacos next to the beisból field on Sundays
• If you don't know where that is, go to the concrete baseball diamond off Van Brunt and ask the guys leaning up against the fence. They'll tell you where the tacos are.
• I hear there is also good Mexican food in Sunset Park.
• Red Hook and Sunset Park are both in Brooklyn.
• I keep thinking about the tamales I had in Austin, Texas.
• And about the El Ranchero tortilla chips and the El Milagro corn tortillas you can get at the Jewel in Chicago.
• There are more Mexicans in Chicago and Austin than in New York.
• Relatively and proportionately speaking.
• I have never seen tacos with hard-boiled eggs and yellow rice before.
• They have them in Red Hook.
• Interesting thing: the Mexican guys by the fruit stand in Red Hook did not look at me, a girl, at all.
• They were too busy giggling with my male friend, gringo like me, whom they found curious.
• That was fun.
• My gringo friend is from Mexi-California and found it curious that they found him curious.
• In Mexi-California there is not so much "Ah! You are different from me. How interesting!"
• I'm not sure there is in New York usually either.
• But maybe.
• There definitely was on Sunday by the beisból fields in Red Hook.
This is where my grand plans for a big idea started to fade this morning. I will let this taco vignette just be a vignette for the moment. But Brian Lehrer has announced a summer series on The Big 'I.' So in the spirit of a summer discussion series on an important issue that is very pressing for our country, I hope to be back with more anecdotes on tacos and curiosity...and if I'm lucky, a big idea.
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