What They Taught Me

The 30 or so beautiful coworkers of mine and the countless others I met at parties or our other restaurant locations weren't and aren't just my friends; I love these people because of what they taught me. The silly eighteen-year-old I was when I applied for the job changed drastically as I was immersed in the Hispanic culture. I didn't know a word of Spanish past hola when I started, and after a few months, I was taking orders and having elementary-level conversations with people who didn't speak a word of English. I didn't know what hard work really was until I was seated 5 tables at once for the first time or until I worked on Cinco de Mayo.
Before I worked in a Mexican restaurant, I thought knowing how to make good guacamole meant I knew Mexican food. Now, when I know what "pineapple water" means and how you can feel the taste buds when you eat cow tongue, I can say I've had Mexican food.
I used to think college parties were great. Playing drinking games and shooting vodka in someone's living room all night sounded like Heaven until I started going to my coworkers' parties. Hispanics know how to throw a party. Instead of a picking up a case of beer, they actually cook for their guests. We usually had a full table of soups, carnitas, ceviche, homemade salsas--now that is Heaven. They made real drinks, too--margaritas, not hunch punch (good, though I hate tequila), and then there was dancing. A huge part of almost every Hispanic party I've been to was dancing. I was shocked the first time I saw some of my friends pair up and salsa dance like professionals. I thought maybe they'd had lessons, but no, they just grew up around it.

I learned a lot from the people I worked with. I learned both about individuals and about a group. When I was there, I felt like my life was divided between two countries. For half the week, I went to school with mostly white English-speakers. For the other half, I was the only white, native-English speaker at my job, and even though my coworkers lived in the US, their music, their language, their food, holidays, traditions were still what they'd grown up with.

In a way, my position and theirs were reversed. Inside the restaurant, they weren't the ones in a foreign country, I was.
I was the one--the only one--who celebrated Christmas on the 25th instead of staying drunk all night on the 24th.
I was the one who didn't know who the band Mana was and didn't fight to get off the night of their concert.
I was the one who got laughs from the cooks at my explanations in Spanish that a customer wanted their chicken unmarinated or their fajitas with only a little grease.
I was the odd one out, and you know what? I loved it that way. Every other job I've had has made me somewhat socially nervous because when you work with people from your own culture, you are expected to be able to relate to them.
On the other hand, when you work with people from another culture, you are expected to stand out. In my job where I was the foreigner, I didn't have any cultural norm to fit into. I was weird, but I was expected to be weird, and that's why I stayed. Thank god I did.