Mexico, after all, has always been there for us, to service our darkest needs and desires. We throw up our hands and shrug at what happens and what is happening just across the border. We love Mexican music, Mexican beaches, Mexican architecture, interior design, Mexican films. Maybe not you personally, but “we”, as a nation, certainly consume titanic amounts of them-and go to extraordinary lengths and expense to acquire them. Mexicans do much of the work in this country that Americans, probably, simply won’t do. Some, of course, like to claim that Mexicans are “stealing American jobs.” But in two decades as a chef and employer, I never had ONE American kid walk in my door and apply for a dishwashing job, a porter’s position-or even a job as a prep cook. As any chef will tell you, our entire service economy-the restaurant business as we know it-in most American cities, would collapse overnight without Mexican workers. Despite our ridiculously hypocritical attitudes towards immigration, we demand that Mexicans cook a large percentage of the food we eat, grow the ingredients we need to make that food, clean our houses, mow our lawns, wash our dishes, and look after our children. We love Mexican people-we sure employ a lot of them. We love Mexican beverages, happily knocking back huge amounts of tequila, mezcal, and Mexican beer every year. We consume nachos, tacos, burritos, tortas, enchiladas, tamales and anything resembling Mexican in enormous quantities.
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