By Ruth E. Hernández Beltrán |
New York (EFE).- The thousands of Latino immigrants who have arrived in New York since last summer face endless challenges, including food, and there are many who hide to cook clandestinely in shelters dishes that remind them of their own countries.
And although they are grateful for the help they receive from the authorities, complaints of “flavorless”, “cold”, “greasy”, “raw” or even “spoiled” food are an outcry.
The ban on cooking, for security reasons, in hostels and hotels paid for by the city has made a problem that arises three times a day even more difficult.
Many go to pantries of churches or various NGOs to obtain food with which they cook in the shelters, assuming the risk of being discovered, or sometimes borrow the kitchen of friends or relatives.
“Many people cook in secret, trying not to let security (in hotels) know. Sometimes I cook for myself and my son in an (electric) pot,” an Ecuadorian woman who arrived three months ago told EFE and who keeps her pot hidden from possible searches.
“The food was a very big culture shock for me,” says the woman, who is staying at the ROW hotel, on eighth avenue between 45th and 46th streets in Manhattan, seized by the authorities to turn it into a refuge just a few steps from Times Square.
Mountains of food in the trash
Recently, the tabloid New York Post – not exactly a friend of immigrants – published a photo taken by a hotel employee: it showed a huge garbage bag full of trays of food provided to emigrants that were practically unopened.
“There are good days and bad days, but generally we don’t like it” because “they don’t season it like we do in our country,” says the woman, who says she has lost several kilos.
Other immigrants denounced that the meals are “very spicy or all mixed, the sweet with the salty”, and that “sometimes we separate it and eat it” because they have no alternative.
For breakfast and lunch they receive bread, cookies, juices, fruits, water, salads, and in the afternoon meat, chicken, pasta, or rice. It looks, to say the least, like airplane food.
The Church understands them
Lutheran priest and activist Fabián Arias, from San Pedro Church in Manhattan, goes at least three times a week with clothes and food such as canned soups, cereals and milk, which he takes to immigrant hotels so they can have alternatives.
He says that he receives complaints “all the time” about the meals and considers that it is “an oversight” by the city because “they have given food in poor condition and with expired dates.”
The priest also distributes donated food such as onions, potatoes, fruits and vegetables in a distribution he makes in the Queens neighborhood, where immigrants like the Peruvian “María” (fictitious name) come, who arrived six months ago, to whom a friend allows her to cook at home for a few days because the food at the shelter where she is in the Bronx “doesn’t taste like anything.”
“María” prepares food for several days, which she keeps in the fridge in her hostel room and heats in the microwave to feed her children and husband.
Angie is Colombian and also goes to pantries to prepare food for herself and her 9-month-old daughter.
“I have an electric stove (in the room in a shelter), everyone cooks there but we can’t let them find those things” because they are confiscated, he says.
She knows that the shelter staff can detect it by smell but, she says, “the smell of marijuana also comes out and that doesn’t bother them, so why should the smell of food bother them?
She says that she cooks because she doesn’t “like junk food” that “has no flavor, no salt, nothing. If you had a person who cooked with love, you wouldn’t see food waste in the landfill.”
Missing “the little bean”
Some say that things have begun to change: Ligia and Ericson, who have also lived in hotels where the food they were given ended up in the trash, say that in the last two weeks they have been getting hot food that they can eat.
“People missed the little rice, the spaghetti, the little beans”, says Ericson and assures that the food has improved “quite a lot”.
“You have to be aware and grateful for the help, because they are receiving us in a country where we have no one,” he humbly indicates.
