I'd say that my biggest concern in writing about La Mexicana was feeling out of place or like an outsider at the market. I just feel very uncomfortable somewhere if I feel like I'm unwelcome or being looked at or judged. I guess my expectations stemmed from whatever conception I have of authenticity or what constitutes an insider/outsider in my mind. All I knew about the market/restaurant was that it served good food and wasn't very expensive. I didn't know anything about what the atmosphere or experience of the market would be like.
Despite my own self-reassurances, I couldn't escape some feeling of discomfort or out-of-placeness. I don't think it was whether the food was authentic or not that unsettled me, I think was my perception of the culture associated with it and the role i played or didn't play in it. As soon as I walked into La Mexicana I felt out of place or like I didn't belong there. I don't speak any Spanish and I have next to no knowledge of Mexican or Latino (or whatever term you want to employ) culture. I felt afraid to speak English and I kept catching myself getting stressed out about how loudly me or my dining companions were talking. In the restaurant we all clustered around the drink fridge for around five minutes. I think we were all scared to approach the counter and learn the truth of whether the cashier spoke English. The whole time I was there, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was out of place, that I didn't belong there. I kept imagining the other patrons eying us surreptitiously with scowls. I'm sure nothing of the sort happened, and I kept trying to convince myself to relax and take it easy. I was a paying customer, people would respect me, I'm sure non-Latinos come in all the time. Despite that rationality, I couldn't relax!
It seems like a large amount of our discomfort came from the things we didn't know about the restaurant and market. We didn't know how to act in this cultural space, we didn't know how much English was spoken and by whom. We had until this point been unexposed to the specific kind of culture we were intruding upon in La Mexicana. We could infer that some English was spoken because of the bi-lingual menus and signs around the restaurant but we didn't know what people thought of us or what the process of ordering and picking up food was. As soon as we sat down to eat, things became easier and we could forget about the tension and enjoy the delicious food.
All the tension I was feeling seems to be based on the concept of us vs. them. I was so self-conscious because I couldn't help seeing myself as a stereotype; a well-off, white college student. Beyond that, I couldn't see the non-white people at La Mexicana as anything but insular foreigners wary of privileged white people sampling their exotic food. I feel pretty bad that I lost sight of the multifaceted nature of people and reverted to thinking of my experience as an interaction between stereotypes. That reversion just seemed so natural. I was in a place where I didn't know what was happening and my personality is a pretty self-interrogative one. I can see how I got so absorbed in over thinking everything everything about my experience at La Mexicana.
Overall I think that the experience of breaking through some boundaries to challenge myself to experience a new cuisine in a very new and unique environment was very valuable. Now that I'm thinking about it, I learned a lot about myself in the process. And had some wonderful food.
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