I 💗 Vallarta
Musings from an election season tortilla trip
I saw the tortillas on my friends counter and I knew I had to have them. They’re from Vallarta! She explained. I normally shop at the Ralph’s down my street, a place that fills me with such a deep sense of dread and exhaustion upon entry that I’ve literally discussed it with my therapist. I hate the bright lights, the confusing layout, the claustrophobic aisles. I don’t hate all grocery stores. When I’m willing to brave the parking lot I can enjoy a Trader Joe’s run. And if I ever hear across the room at a party that you’re heading to France I’ll corner you by the chips and salsa and insist you go into their grocery stores and buy some of the best yogurt you’ve ever had.1
I love grocery stores when traveling. It’s such an intimate look at another culture, you can almost imagine as you drift through aisles in a Kyoto supermarket what your life would be like there. It’s fun to see the ways the world can be different and the same. Everybody eats, but not everybody has “Club Corn” fried corn snacks at their fingertips.
So, after seeing the tortillas, I left my friends house and immediately sped to Vallarta. How had I never entered the Mexican grocery store only a few miles away, just behind the airport?
And I was not disappointed with what I saw inside. An entire stand in the store dedicated to fresh tortillas. A tamale station. Prepackaged freshly made rice and beans. The good kind of tortilla chips. Heaven.
As I waltzed the bright aisles picking up tres leches and enchilada sauce, I felt lucky. How strange, I thought, that some people want all of this to go away.
I’ve been following the election with a pit in my stomach much bigger than the kind I get entering Ralph’s. I hope and believe that that racist, anti-immigrant melted creamsicle will lose, but the fact that this election is even close is a mindfuck. I mean, one guy has literally said he wants “one violent day”2 and the mass deportation of 25 million immigrants. (I think the legal/illegal distinction is bullshit, but for what it’s worth actual number of undocumented people in the US is estimated to be closer to 11 million- a teeny tiny 0.03% of the US population. Still, Vance and Trump have made clear they’re happy to deport legal migrants too).
Walking through the aisles of Vallarta, it’s hard to imagine how Americans could feel anything but blessed by multiculturalism. When I’ve phone banked in the past, I’ve listened to white America talk about how dangerous our cities are (they arent!!) and patiently tried to explain that, having lived in a city for over 10 years, I find it joyful and comforting to be surrounded by so much humanity, so much culture, so many hidden gems full of the best tortillas in town.
I haven’t always been a city girl. I grew up in southern Ohio, a few miles from JD Vance (which is, fact check, not Appalachia!!), so I have an academic understanding of the kind of xenophobia millions of Americans are voting on. But it still feels fucking crazy to me. Imagine being a grown man afraid of immigrants! Embarrassing!! Skill issue!!! Go to therapy!!!!!
I love a lot of Midwestern culture: our weird obsession with chili, backyard cornhole, our snide politeness. But I feel embarrassed that, these days, our greatest cultural export is fear and hatred3. I’m so lucky to live in a city where I can see so much more. To not need a plane or a long road trip to find an aisle full of fresh tortillas. There’s a churro cart right down the street, and Vallarta a few blocks from there, and damn, that’s fucking beautiful. And that’s the America I’m voting for.
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It’s a whole yogurt/ potted dessert section and it BLEW MY MIND. I had no idea how many different pots de creme a femme could find!!!
Just to be crystal clear, this man is proposing Kristallnacht.
WHEN IT SHOULD BE THE CHILI! Oh my god, the chili!!!!! IT’S ON SPAGHETTI! EQUAL RATIO OF CHEDDAR CHEESE! OYSTER CRACKERS! MAKES YOUR TUMMY HURT! INCREDIBLE!!!!
Hell yeah! I am so lucky to be married to a first gen Mexican American. His mom makes the BEST food!!!
It's simplistic to see the need to deport people when hundreds of millions of us will be on the move into the next decades (maybe more than a billion according to this source https://www.zurich.com/media/magazine/2022/there-could-be-1-2-billion-climate-refugees-by-2050-here-s-what-you-need-to-know). I chose an insurance company to source just because it can't be construed as "fake news" although many news sources (google search will show) have written about this over the last several years. And there's a whole UN Network on Migration that's been in place for years (https://migrationnetwork.un.org/) THIS IS NOT A UNIQUELY USA PROBLEM. In fact, thanks to our last hurricane, we may have many people fleeing certain states because the timeline to make their spot livable is too long for them to live into. Well, I didn't expect this comment to get so long or so pointed, but again, the perspective of many people is too hyper focused to be helpful in a world changing as quickly as ours is.