Other meals on our trip included Vietnamese and Chinese – the type of Chinese food that you get in the UK that I had been missing so much. I couldn’t resist the corned beef hash with bottomless coffee. Portion sizes are intense in the USA, and even if you share it can be almost too much. At Black Bear Diner, I stared in disbelief as obese people ordered enough food to feed a small family. Of course, good old fashioned American food featured heavily on our trip too, a desire fueled by watching way too many episodes of Diners, Drive Ins & Dives over the years. It was my first time eating grilled cactus pads ( nopales) and it was amazing! Washed down with a big glass of tamarind juice. With enough space for about seven people at a push, this place felt exciting – customers speaking Spanish, Mexican music playing, and staff ladling red and green salsas into heavy stone dishes. A few Google searches later led us to Eva’s Cafe – a minuscule restaurant set deep in the Latino suburbs. No Mexican restaurant will survive in the city unless it is amazingly good, and so I was eager to try the most authentic place I could find. The police there basically turn a blind eye to it in order to keep the greater peace.Īs you would expect, Mexican food in Salinas is on point. As a result, I found it interesting to learn that Salinas police department policy is to not verify immigration status of individuals coming into contact with city police officers. With residents scared of being deported, they are unlikely to want to talk to police, making it hard for officers to carry out investigations and build community relations. Of course, there are problems that come with such immigration, namely the fear that many undocumented immigrants have of government authorities. Not even close.Ī huge influx of legal (and illegal) Hispanic immigrants means east Salinas almost feels like Mexico, complete with Spanish shop signs and Hispanic families sitting on church steps on Sundays. It wasn’t all white like the TV suggested. Looking around the gym, and walking about town, I was happy to see that so many different kinds of people did live together. And for the most part, this commentary was predominantly white. ![]() Up until that point, a lot of my naive exposure to America had been through the media – whether it was via movies or even following political campaigns. And that set the scene for the entire trip, making me question my own preconceived perceptions about the US. Salinas has a huge Hispanic population, and so most people were either Hispanic, or mixed race. Yet when I looked around, the demographic couldn’t have been more different. And of course, the American flag, which seemed to be everywhere: hanging from porches, emblazoned on tshirts and plastered on the bumpers of pickup trucks.Īt the gym, I would look up at the TV to see white newscasters with white teeth talking to white weather girls. From a purely aesthetic point of view, suburban life was everything I had hoped it would be: palm trees on the streets, purple sunsets, and freshly cut lawns.
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