Learning What Was Missing
I didn’t know what Rhode Island was
I arrived at Providence College in 1975 on a full scholarship. I knew where Rhode Island was, but had no idea what to expect. As I walked around, I notice that other students had visited campus that summer during orientation, and had already chosen roommates. I arrived alone—a Mexican-American from Texas, from a border city in the Southwest.
When I started to meet people and they asked where I was from, the questions came quickly about my accent, about hats (Texas 10-gallon hats and sombreros!), and about Mexico. They seemed curious, but I felt examined in ways I didn’t yet have the words for.
There were no other Latinos that I could find. No one spoke Spanish and definitely no familiar food, like tortillas. During the first couple of months, when the temperatures began to drop, the cold cut through the thin windbreaker I brought from home, my idea of a “warm coat.” I never asked myself why I was there, but I often wondered when it would start to feel better.
The absence showed up everywhere, but most clearly in the cafeteria. College food is famously bad, but this felt different. There were no rice or frijoles, no tortillas. None of the foods your body recognizes before your mind can explain why. I didn’t have the language for it then, but I know now that I was missing my culture in very physical ways. Food is memory and it is care.
Food has become a thread in my story because as I learn later in my oral history work, food is how one finally knows not just where they are, but what is missing.
Realizing We Were Here ➤
