Studying Latino Culture by Ruth Paget

Studying Latino Culture by Ruth Paget 

When I worked on team projects with classmates whose parents had come from Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Bolivia in high school and later when I volunteered at intercultural skills workshops for exchange students from Latin America, Spain, and other countries, I knew I would like to work with Latinos and learn Spanish in the future. 

The future finally came when I was middle aged and started working as the Youth Services Librarian for Monterey County California. The County had a 51% Hispanic population according to the U.S. census and was growing. Many households only spoke Spanish according to the census as well. 

I had studied Spanish independently for twenty years and could read the language. Now I had speak Spanish for work. I began memorizing all library materials that we had in Spanish. 

I next went on Radio Bilingue in Salinas, California to do an hour show in Spanish about library services with call-in questions. I did a prepared speech about library services and then fielded questions. People spoke slowly. I was able to respond in Spanish after some quick translation in my head. The hour seemed very long, but was fun at the same time. 

That radio show gave me the confidence to speak in Spanish at community events about library services. The result was tremendous participation in summer reading programs for children and at homework centers during the school year. I also loved doing bilingual story times during Latino Heritage Month. I put together a kit of stories, songs, and art projects to do and encouraged children to learn English and Spanish perfectly by high school, so they could learn a third language in high school. 

One project that I did not get around to was making a suggested reading list for Latino Heritage Month. I have finally done so with books that helped me better understand Latino culture. The list follows in four categories: 

-Politics 

-History 

-Culture 

-Cookbooks 

Politics: 

-Latinx by Ed Morales 

-The Hispanic Republican by Geraldo C. Cadava 

-Recovering History, Constructing Race: Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans by Martha Mancheca 

History: 

-The Caribbean: A History of the Region and its Peoples by Stephan Palmie

-The Oxford History of Mexico by William H. Beazley 

Culture: 

-Puerto Rico is Music! By Maritza Ramirez 

-Latin American Folktales from the Hispanic and Indian Traditions by John Bierhorst 

Cookbooks: 

-Quesadillas by Donna Kelly 

-Empanadas: The Hand-Held Pies of Latin America by Sandra Gutierrez 

-Taqueria Tacos: A Taco Cookbook to Bring the Flavors of Mexico Home by Leslie Limon 

-The Best Mexican Recipes by America’s Test Kitchen 

-From My Mexican Kitchen: Techniques and Ingredients by Diana Kennedy (Very good on tamales) 

-The Native Mexican Kitchen by Rachel Glueck and Noel Morales  

-Salud: Vegan Mexican Cookbook: 150 Mouth Watering Recipes from Tamales to Churros by Eddie Garza 

-Authentic Mexican by Rick Bayless 

-Puerto Rican Cuisine by Oswald Rivera 

-Cuban Cooking by Michael Holtby 

I am sure I will find some more book treasures to add to this list for upcoming Latino Heritage Months. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Ruth Paget Photo

Hawaii Trips by Ruth Paget

Hawaii Trips by Ruth Paget 

The first trip I made to Hawaii was in 1979 after spending a month in the Peoples Republic of China as part of a youth tour from inner-city Detroit, Michigan. 

Tropical Honolulu reminded me of Guangzhou and Hong Kong after flights from wintry Tokyo and Beijing. Peking had recently changed its name when the PRC resumed formal diplomatic relations with the U.S. We had to fly from Tokyo to Honolulu, because there were no direct flights from Beijing to the U.S. at the time. 

The youth tour members were staying in Honolulu with host families before our long trek home to Detroit. The house I stayed in was surrounded by trees with two-feet leaves, which looked like swaying teeth. 

My host family was native Hawaiian. I liked taking a long shower and letting my hair dry in the warm, tropical Hawaiian breezes. As they made dinner, they teased me about tourist eating all the Hawaiian food. I ate roasted pork, pineapple, mangoes, and macadamia nuts. I had recently learned to like Chinese food and was learning to like Polynesian food, too. 

The entire youth tour was treated to a beach luau prepared by our host families. Afterwards, we made our first presentation about what we had learned from our travels in China to the Honolulu chapter of the U.S. – China Peoples’ Friendship Association. 

Before we left Hawaii, one of the Japanese members of the U.S. – China Peoples’ Friendship Association gave us a presentation about immigration to Hawaii. The Japanese and Portuguese were the largest groups, who made up the farmworkers on the pineapple plantations. 

My next trip to Hawaii came decades later with my husband Laurent and daughter Florence. We went to Honolulu and rented a car. Florence drove all week around O’ahu. 

The first place we visited was Pearl Harbor. I noted that ports tend to be in working class neighborhoods. We drove from Pearl Harbor and went to a golf club for cheeseburgers. 

Florence had a Moon touring guide and made a checklist of places to stop at and photograph and film with the video function on her phone. 

We spent the week eating poke – a kind of seasoned sushi with sesame seeds, visiting the Dole Plantation and eating sweet-and-sour pork made with pineapple and shave ice there, and eating grilled red fish with tropical fruit sauces at the hotel. 

We began our days at Wailana Café, which served coconut milk as creamer, unctuous Portuguese sausage, and sweet Portuguese bread. 

I have had grand times in Hawaii and discovered that I really like coconut milk in my Kona coffee. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Ruth Paget Photo

Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia Trip by Ruth Paget

Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia Trip by Ruth Paget 

In 1979, my Pennington grandma began to nag my mother that I had been to communist China and fancy French and British Montreal, Canada during my freshman year of high school without visiting her in Pennington Gap, Virginia. 

“I know Ruth would like to visit aristocratic England, but tell her Pennington Gap is like Scotland where the royals are educated,” she might have said to my mother. 

In any case, my mother drove from Detroit, Michigan down to Pennington Gap, Virginia and then out to Robbins Chapel (another surname from my family tree) where the Pennington cousins were staying for the summer. 

Robbins Chapel, Virginia is about one mile away from Kentucky and three miles away from Tennessee. Pennington Gap leads to all points west. 

Pennington Gap was different from Kentucky and Tennessee according to my grandmother: 

“We’re midway up the Appalachians. We’re ridge runners not hillbillies like those people in Tennessee and Kentucky. Hillbillies got rich making moonshine and running it up to New York during the Prohibition. They still hide their ill-gotten gains.” 

“The Penningtons are church. Your Pennington ancestor, Isaac Penington, was the father-in-law of William Penn. Our family started as Quakers, but we’re Baptist now.” 

My petite grandma could be daunting, so I did not ask if the Penningtons got rich being overseers in coal mines in Virginia. 

After the welcome lecture, my cousins and I were allowed to play games and amuse ourselves. 

In the mornings, we would walk down to the general store, which had a pool table in the back room. We played all morning and drank Dr. Pepper soda while being Vegas. We would walk up the hill to our various relatives’ houses for lunch. Then, we would play several rounds of croquet on the hillside for physical exercise. In the late afternoon, we would play rummy with the aunts while waiting for the male relatives to get back from golf.  At night, we would play kick-the-can, a version of hide and seek where you kick a can up and hide in a fixed spot when the can hits the ground.

Besides games, my Aunt J. taught me how to can blackberries to make the blackberry gravy (jam) that I loved to eat for breakfast on biscuits. That alone was worth the trip to Pennington Gap. She also took me to the family graveyard to help me do genealogical work. She had also done this and was helping me fill in the gaps on the family tree I had been working on. 

Sometimes we would go to Kingsport, Tennessee to visit the stockbroker. I loved watching the ticker tape spit out of the ticker tape machine. 

Other times we would go to Kentucky for lunch. Kentucky looked like Pennington Gap, but had more Pentecostal Churches. “The Pentecostals handle rattlesnakes without fear, because they are holy,” Aunt J. told me. 

I thought Appalachia was more dangerous than Detroit and was glad to be with my family. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Ruth Paget Photo

St. Louis, Missouri Trip by Ruth Paget

St. Louis, Missouri Trip by Ruth Paget 

As a child, I traveled around the Midwestern United States with my mother, who was an elected Secretary-Treasurer of the Midwest Conference of the International Typographical Union (a forerunner of the Communication Workers of America) as well as a union organizer. 

Many of the conferences were held in Detroit, where we lived. For other meetings, mom drove her black Thunderbird with rock and roll blaring while drinking a Fresca (a carbonated grapefruit drink that was low in calories). 

I liked staying in hotels with pools and did not mind reading while the conferences were going on. Some of the infinitely cool places we visited include: 

-Toledo, Ohio 

-Cleveland, Ohio

-Cincinnati, Ohio 

-Gary, Indiana 

-Indianapolis, Indiana 

-Chicago, Illinois 

-St. Louis, Missouri 

Even if a meeting were held at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, my mom drive up Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago to get to the airport, so we could model white-rimmed sunglasses while listening to rock music. The Detroiters were in Chicago. 

My mom would tell me Detroit insider music information that her fiends in bands told her such as:

-“Everyone in the music industry knows that the Pontiac Silverdome has 82,666 seats that they can fill with people who will buy at least one $20 T-shirt.” 

“People who sell rock merchandise need to sell sunglasses.” 

“Rock concerts would sell out faster, if they could get an army of salesman to sell on commission as a side-job.” 

Today, she would probably agree that online boutiques are a great way to sell 24/7/365. I think her remarks encouraged me to become a member of the Major Activities Board (Concert Board) when I was a student at the University of Chicago. 

The place I remember best from these travels, though, is St. Louis (Missouri) for its Gateway Arch, designed by architect Eero Saarinen. My mom told me it was the tallest arch in the world. 

Even as a child, I knew it was a doorway to a big land with high mountains in the West. 

As an adult, I like living in the Western United States in California where it is okay to write, cook, and use technology. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Ruth Paget Photo

Helen, Georgia Trip by Ruth Paget

Helen, Georgia Trip by Ruth Paget 

On our last trip to Atlanta, Laurent and I drove to Helen located in Northeastern Georgia in the Appalachian Mountains. I wanted to visit Georgia’s Wine Country along the state’s agritourism trail. 

The agritourism route to Helen goes through the Chattahooche National Forest and the Unicoi and Smithgall Woods State Parks. Wine tasting rooms line the way along with inns advertising live music in the evenings. 

Cherokee Native Americans were Helen’s original inhabitants followed by gold miners and lumber industry workers. 

The Chattahooche River runs through Helen, which is built to resemble a Bavarian town. There is plenty of paid parking, which prompted us to eat at the Troll Tavern and Restaurant for its free parking. 

The Troll has a terrace right beside the Chattahooche River that rushes all the way to Atlanta. 

During the day, you order at the counter and a server brings you your order. I asked Laurent for a Wiener Schnitzel combo platter like we used to get when we lived in Germany. 

Laurent went to order and came back to photograph Bavarian flags in the distance and the river. 

The server arrived and placed a combo plate in front of me: a hot dog in a bun, potato chips, and coleslaw. Laurent smiled at me, knowing he was being a troll at the Troll Tavern. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Ruth Paget Photo

Smyrna, Georgia Trips by Ruth Paget

Smyrna, Georgia Trips by Ruth Paget 

My husband Laurent and I have been on five business trips to Atlanta, Georgia over five years. We always stay in Smyrna, famous for its restored downtown all painted in white and its huge Cumberland Mall with the Chattahooche River and park running by it. 

We always started our stays with a trip to Costco to buy lunch food. I have eaten a lot of Caesar Salad and blueberry muffins in middle age. 

We would go to dinner at Cracker Barrel and Marietta Diner, featured by Guy Fieri on television. For fancy weekend dinners with my family, we would go to Maggiano’s, Cheesecake Factory, and Carraba’s – all by Cumberland Mall. I liked to eat at Applebee’s, too, but Laurent preferred fish at Cracker Barrel. 

The best thing about Smyrna is Cumberland Avenue. If you turned a left from our hotel, you could drive all the way out to Blue Ridge at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains on it. If you turned right from the hotel, you could take Cumberland Avenue straight downtown to CNN. 

There was an apartment complex over Cumberland Avenue right as you entered Atlanta. I would have liked to live there, if I were younger. There is a Kroger Supermarket and dry cleaners and alteration store on Cumberland Avenue nearby. You need both of those to work well in a city as well as a garage. 

I always brought projects to work on during these trips. I treated them like writing sabbaticals and got my eight books typed, proofed, edited, and placed on Kindle along with writing 500 publicity blogs. Atlanta’s heat kept me in the room working. 

I liked going to Cost Plus World Market when Laurent was done working to buy souvenirs such as coffee, books, and biscotti. 

I still view Atlanta as place to get things done, buy nice souvenirs, and eat well. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Ruth Paget Photo

Utah Vacations by Ruth Paget

Utah Vacations by Ruth Paget 

I have happily visited Utah five times with my husband Laurent in the 2010s on business trips. Ruth, the stage mother, knew that the Sundance Institute is located in the mountains outside Salt Lake City. 

So, on the first free weekend of our trips to Utah, we always drove out to Sundance to buy merchandise for our daughter Florence Paget, who was studying playwriting at Juilliard in New York. 

Our first Sundance purchase was knit cap with the word “Sundance” knit in it. I wrote my mother in Wisconsin to get a picture of Florence in her Sundance cap with a snowman. (My mom is a stage grandma and got this done right away.) 

Some of our other fun Sundance purchases include: 

-snow jackets -a leather journal with Sundance embossed on the cover 

-Western scarves book 

-Wilderness knives with corkscrews 

-Cowboy doodle books 

-paper journals for project management 

After shopping, we would go to the café for fizzy, non-caffeinated soft drinks and muffins. We would look over our purchases and discuss them. I am a stage mom who will sell film downloads, tickets, and merchandise for my family’s products, so I like discussing markets and merchandise sales. 

Once we had visited Sundance, we would drive into Park City to eat a more substantial meal at El Chabusco Mexican restaurant. You order at the counter here and a restaurant worker will bring it to you when it is ready. El Chabusco has lots of sauces on its buffet counter. I stir mango-pepper sauce into my refried beans and cilantro-lime sauce into my rice for extra kick. I like shredded chicken or cheese enchiladas with tomatillo sauce for lunch. 

After our meal at El Chabusco, we would walk down a few doors to Einstein Brother Bagels to order bagels for dinner. I could relive my youth in Detroit (Michigan) here when I would go to suburban Southfield for bagels – onion in winter and salt in summer with lots of cream cheese. 

On other weekends during our trips over five years, Laurent and I would visit one of Utah’s many national parks: 

-Arches – This national park was made famous as an Apple screensaver and mousepad. It is scorching hot, so make sure to bring water, a hat, and sunscreen. 

-Zion – The massive tablelands in this park were created by erosion, exposing layers of varying colors of red rock. The mesas (tables) glisten in the sun and are very photogenic. 

-Bryce Canyon – Famous for its hoo doos or rock chimneys that you can view from above. You can drive through the hoo doos on the valley floor as well. The valley landscape resembles Mars with red rocks and red soil. 

-Canyonlands – These are vast and sizzling hot even in a car with air conditioning. The Colorado River cuts through this area carrying red soil with it. 

-Sandy – This is not a national park, but has dramatic scenery in a mining area. The California Tectonic Plate collides with the North America Tectonic Plate here and creates towering pillars that surround you as you go through the mountains on a one-lane free on stilts. 

Utah has many areas for skiing and zip lining (Sundance has a zip line) in addition to historic and cultural centers in downtown Salt Lake City. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Ruth Paget Photo