Hey, Waitress!
The USA from the Other Side of the Tray
Chapter One
Voices from the Other
Side of the Tray
Slices of American History
Waitress work evokes the present. A meal is served now, minutes (if
sometimes many minutes) after being ordered, and often within an hour it
is eaten and paid for and its residue removed. The perception of
waitressing as immediate, however, risks ignoring the deeper connections
some waitresses have, in very different ways, with our common history.
Arleen Garcia
The Sonoran desert, the hottest in North America, spreads a scorch of
earth from Baja California to Arizona. In its northern reaches, if winter
rains are mighty, spring explodes with sparse lushness, in ascendancies of
mesquite, yucca, bear grass, cholla, devil's claw, ocotillo, agave. The
grateful people who utilized such bounty also planted seeds for squash,
beans, and corn. Then they sang for summer rains, to make narrow rivers
overflow onto the planted plains. If they failed to perform the rain
ceremony, the Wigita, the ... read full excerpt from: Hey, Waitress!: The USA from the Other Side of the Tray ebook
