I took my vehicle to the Ford dealer last week because my AC wasn’t working properly. Cost to fix? Possibly only a simple busted electrical switch OR major surgery to the front console that would cost over $1,400. They quoted me $295. to diagnose it. Result? It needs major surgery. I decided not to do that and just live with the problem. So what did the woman behind the service desk at Ford do? She said I didn’t owe them nothin’. I actually questioned her decision because I know they need to turn a profit. She insisted.
I went home and grabbed two jars of Avante salsa macha — macha cacahuate and macha chipotluda. Then I grabbed a bag of de la Rosa Japanese peanuts called Japones Nishiyama. Driving back to Ford I came up with a disturbing thought ……. I hope she doesn’t have a peanut allergy. I asked her if she did. “No” Do you like spicy food? “I love it.” Here, these are from Mexico. I go down there a lot and love this stuff. I hope you like it and thank you, again, for treating me so well.
Driving home had me thinking about the stuff I bring home from Mexico and how cheap and easy it is to be Santa Claus. The salsas cost just over two dollars each and the Japanese peanuts are a buck and a quarter. I eat this stuff all the time and can’t stop introducing it to others. The salsa jars are from Walmart and are small so if someone really doesn’t like it……. toss it. That’s why I buy those in volume but also have several other brands in my fridge. The peanuts are from Smart & Final and are very special to me because that particular brand adds dried chile powder for more taste. They are brown instead of a light tan color. S & F can run out of these so I also buy this in bulk.
But what really got to me as I drove home was the realization that I discovered both of these foods in the U.S. I found salsa macha at a fairly fancy Mexican restaurant that someone took me to. I was floored and asked would they sell me some? Yes. I found the Japanese peanuts, created by a Japanese man who immigrated to Mexico City in the 1940’s, in a small liquor store next to the place where I get my hair cut. That day I had to wait for a trim and walked into the store to kill time. The peanuts were at the counter along with sunflower seeds and candy. Both events occurred by pure accident.
But, how could this have happened? Because Los Angeles used to be Mexico. I was not in Ohio or Kentucky. Los Angeles, San Francisco, El Monte, and Santa Monica don’t sound French or English, do they? This was first the Spanish Empire then Mexico until we made a land grab starting in 1846 that even many of our generals questioned as ethical. The territory of Alta California included California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Little wonder that all the guys behind the parts counter at Ford were speaking Spanish. And that’s frustrating for me. Why? Because I’ve been too damn lazy to learn the language after all these years. Why? Because they also speak English. I’ve seen this on a t-shirt ……. I didn’t cross the border, the border crossed me. (I have long envied Europeans who know three or four languages. Lazy me.)
I’ll leave you with this. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave us Alta California on February 2, 1848. Gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill near Sacramento just days before on January 24, 1848. California was very sparsely populated then. But if that gold had been discovered just a few years earlier and if …..IF…… the Mexican government and people could have rushed up north in large numbers……. oh my. What might our maps look like now?
