For Sandra, it's not just about the cooking
As I mentioned on my previous blog, people can have a bad day. We forget a major assignment; we arrive late to a meeting; people step on our gardens; things happen.
This morning as I began setting up my station for lunch at the restaurant, one of my coworkers, Sandra, came over to talk. Sandra is about five foot four and 22 years old. She is one year older than I am. She is also from El Salvador. Sandra tells me how she is thinking about getting another job at a restaurant that pays better. She explains to me how frustrated she is with the tasks she does and the uncertainly of her job hours. I explain to her that I will be leaving too to begin another step in my culinary training. She suddenly looks disappointed. I asked her what she was thinking.
She explained to me, in both English and Spanish, that since her English isn’t that good she can’t get out of the restaurant industry even if she wanted to go into something like catering. She tells me that I am lucky because I am educated and speak English. She says I’ll be a chef soon.
Sandra, like many restaurant cooks of her nationality, are gifted cooks. They comprehend, just as any white educated person, how to make vegetable stock, bisque, saffron risotto, dice carrots, and how to make a hollandaise among many other culinary feats. But Sandra struggles to break out of the legal immigrant glass ceiling. She has a job, pays her bills, and puts food on the table for her husband and child. But she will always be a line cook. She will never, unless she learns her English, be a chef.
The restaurant industry is not glamorous. It is a life of hard, backbreaking work that tests your character and your soul. It forces you to realize, among many cultures, how lucky you are.
Right now I work along side them. I work the same odd, labor-intensive hours as Sandra. But I will leave the restaurant to finish my culinary education and work to move up the culinary hierarchy. And at the end of a bad day I will be able to speak English; I will be able to display a diploma. Sandra, along with my other coworkers, will not. They will continue to work those long hours with bad compensation for a long time and not take any action.
Sandra later told me she wants to work on her English. I told her that was a great idea.
This morning as I began setting up my station for lunch at the restaurant, one of my coworkers, Sandra, came over to talk. Sandra is about five foot four and 22 years old. She is one year older than I am. She is also from El Salvador. Sandra tells me how she is thinking about getting another job at a restaurant that pays better. She explains to me how frustrated she is with the tasks she does and the uncertainly of her job hours. I explain to her that I will be leaving too to begin another step in my culinary training. She suddenly looks disappointed. I asked her what she was thinking.
She explained to me, in both English and Spanish, that since her English isn’t that good she can’t get out of the restaurant industry even if she wanted to go into something like catering. She tells me that I am lucky because I am educated and speak English. She says I’ll be a chef soon.
Sandra, like many restaurant cooks of her nationality, are gifted cooks. They comprehend, just as any white educated person, how to make vegetable stock, bisque, saffron risotto, dice carrots, and how to make a hollandaise among many other culinary feats. But Sandra struggles to break out of the legal immigrant glass ceiling. She has a job, pays her bills, and puts food on the table for her husband and child. But she will always be a line cook. She will never, unless she learns her English, be a chef.
The restaurant industry is not glamorous. It is a life of hard, backbreaking work that tests your character and your soul. It forces you to realize, among many cultures, how lucky you are.
Right now I work along side them. I work the same odd, labor-intensive hours as Sandra. But I will leave the restaurant to finish my culinary education and work to move up the culinary hierarchy. And at the end of a bad day I will be able to speak English; I will be able to display a diploma. Sandra, along with my other coworkers, will not. They will continue to work those long hours with bad compensation for a long time and not take any action.
Sandra later told me she wants to work on her English. I told her that was a great idea.
Labels: sandra
posted by Allison at
3:19 PM
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