Buffalo Grill is located at the corner of Buffalo Speedway and Bissonet in Houston, Texas, an upscale area. It’s next to West University Place, a well-manicured, attractive area of well-to-do people that managed to incorporate their town and stay relatively independent from the city of Houston. Across the street from the Grill is a shopping center with several restaurants, a signature Kroger supermarket, and many little shops. I once visited the optician in that shopping center, where they wanted $270 (at the cheapest) to replace the lenses in my glasses; the next highest price I found at local opticians was $190 and I ended up getting them done for $70. This is the area of the Buffalo Grill.
When I was in Buffalo Grill with my roommates for a roommate breakfast, I made a quick trip to the bathroom. There I noticed the sign that hangs in all restaurant restrooms, reading something like “Los empleados tienen que lavarse las manos antes de trabajar.” Employees must wash their hands before returning to work. Only in this bathroom, the sign was not bilingual; it was written only in Spanish.
This made me think: are all the people that work here Hispanic? In some of my sociology classes we discuss “ethnic niches”; ethnic groups tend to cluster in a certain industry due to a variety of factors such as social networks. Usually, however, blacks tend to be in food service and Hispanics are in janitorial positions. At Buffalo Grill, I didn’t see a single black person in front of or behind the counter.
Perhaps all or even a majority of the employees of this particular restaurant are Hispanic. I cannot decide whether I like this or not. On one hand, it strikes me as the typical scene of the rich importing the less-well-off to serve them. The employees of the Buffalo Grill most certainly do not make enough money at their job to live in the area. Does anyone else feel uncomfortable when all the customers at a restaurant are white, and all the cooks and waiters are not? Or does everyone feel that way, but some people try to ignore it?
On the other hand, it strikes me as at least somewhat positive that these people have jobs. They are not part of the crowd of day laborers on Westpark every morning, hoping to land a job that will almost certainly pay less than minimum wage.
In the end, perhaps I am happy to see these people with jobs, but I am frustrated and angered by the larger picture of vast racial inequalities, leaving many more Hispanics poor and working at stoves and registers instead of in front of computers. And I am frustrated that rich people always want to employ relatively cheap labor without having to live near their employees or see the consequences of that “cheap” in the lives and families of those people. Would the Buffalo Grill still exist if the patrons had to meet and greet the families of the employees?
Whatever solutions I come up with to these problems always seem to have hidden consequences. So, the question I always end with: What can I do about this?
**Diclaimer: I don't know the facts about the economic situation of Buffalo Grill employees, and I could be totally off base. But I have a feeling if this isn't true of the Buffalo Grill, it's true of somewhere.
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
The Unappreciative Crowds
I have a feeling my blog is going to turn into commentary on social issues or just things that bug me. here is my second lame attempt at writing something decent to put up.
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At Rice we have a tradition involving a large marble archway that leads from the entrance to campus into the academic quad. This archway is called the Sallyport. During orientation week, all the new students attend matriculation and then process through the Sallyport, symbolic of entering Rice. And like all good universities, we have a tradition that no student is supposed to walk out of the Sallyport until graduation, when all the graduates process out. The accompanying myth that if you walk out of it before graduation, you won’t graduate.
Some people concoct their own rules to “undo” the instances when they slipped and walked out. One of my roommates walked back in once for every time she walked out. Another friend of mine had to process out prematurely with the graduates her junior year in the role of student body president; she concluded that when she had to process back in the Sallyport at the following year’s matriculation (also in the role of student body president) it un-did the previous walking out.
Some people ignore the Sallyport completely. A guy I knew freshman year walked out of the Sallyport every day because it was the most direct route from his last class back to his dorm. Some people are Sallyport fanatics, refusing to walk anywhere near the Sallyport. I always was part of the school of thought that once we had processed in, we could walk in freely; we just had to avoid exiting the quad through the Sallyport.
Of course, we all know plenty of people who walked out prematurely and still earned their diplomas in four years. But the commonly held notion is that if you don’t walk out of the Sallyport before you graduate, it makes it really special to walk out when you do graduate. I can truthfully admit that the most exciting part of my own graduation ceremony was walking out of the Sallyport. (Then again, after sitting outside in sultry Houston heat for 3 hours listening to over 700 names being called, almost anything would probably seem really exciting.)
Now I have graduated, but I return to campus daily for my summer job. I walk out of the Sallyport almost every day because it is the quickest way from my office to my car. Each time I walk out I feel it is a very symbolic and serious moment. And yet, no one around me ever seems to notice that I am walking out of the Sallyport. They don’t seem appreciate the importance of that act. Do they realize that I survived four years, Differential Equations, a weird-o roommate, lines at the Registrar’s office that rival USSR bread lines in length, several crazy professors (anyone remember the Arabic retreat?), 7 semesters of CK’s less than gourmet cooking, and a crazy Moroccan family to earn my little stroll through the Sallyport?
It’s a sad day when the people standing around don’t even take a minute to cheer for you on your daily walk out of the Sallyport. Even the crowd of little kids on campus for summer camp doesn't give me a round of applause or a line of high fives when they see me walk out. I guess our society is more self-absorbed than I realized.
Life is rough as an unappreciated Rice grad.
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At Rice we have a tradition involving a large marble archway that leads from the entrance to campus into the academic quad. This archway is called the Sallyport. During orientation week, all the new students attend matriculation and then process through the Sallyport, symbolic of entering Rice. And like all good universities, we have a tradition that no student is supposed to walk out of the Sallyport until graduation, when all the graduates process out. The accompanying myth that if you walk out of it before graduation, you won’t graduate.
Some people concoct their own rules to “undo” the instances when they slipped and walked out. One of my roommates walked back in once for every time she walked out. Another friend of mine had to process out prematurely with the graduates her junior year in the role of student body president; she concluded that when she had to process back in the Sallyport at the following year’s matriculation (also in the role of student body president) it un-did the previous walking out.
Some people ignore the Sallyport completely. A guy I knew freshman year walked out of the Sallyport every day because it was the most direct route from his last class back to his dorm. Some people are Sallyport fanatics, refusing to walk anywhere near the Sallyport. I always was part of the school of thought that once we had processed in, we could walk in freely; we just had to avoid exiting the quad through the Sallyport.
Of course, we all know plenty of people who walked out prematurely and still earned their diplomas in four years. But the commonly held notion is that if you don’t walk out of the Sallyport before you graduate, it makes it really special to walk out when you do graduate. I can truthfully admit that the most exciting part of my own graduation ceremony was walking out of the Sallyport. (Then again, after sitting outside in sultry Houston heat for 3 hours listening to over 700 names being called, almost anything would probably seem really exciting.)
Now I have graduated, but I return to campus daily for my summer job. I walk out of the Sallyport almost every day because it is the quickest way from my office to my car. Each time I walk out I feel it is a very symbolic and serious moment. And yet, no one around me ever seems to notice that I am walking out of the Sallyport. They don’t seem appreciate the importance of that act. Do they realize that I survived four years, Differential Equations, a weird-o roommate, lines at the Registrar’s office that rival USSR bread lines in length, several crazy professors (anyone remember the Arabic retreat?), 7 semesters of CK’s less than gourmet cooking, and a crazy Moroccan family to earn my little stroll through the Sallyport?
It’s a sad day when the people standing around don’t even take a minute to cheer for you on your daily walk out of the Sallyport. Even the crowd of little kids on campus for summer camp doesn't give me a round of applause or a line of high fives when they see me walk out. I guess our society is more self-absorbed than I realized.
Life is rough as an unappreciated Rice grad.
Sunday, June 27, 2004
the origins of VALF
I have been inspired to start a blog. It's 50% due to the cool blogs my friends and my sister keep up, and 50% due to the supreme boredom I reside in for most of the time I'm in front of a computer (at work) and my desperate attempts to spice up my computer life.
You may be wondering where the "Valf" title of this site came from.
Isn't it obvious?
Valf rhymes with Alf.
Need I say more?
To be entirely correct, it's actually written VALF, and there's more involved than my likeness to a cuddly 1980s alien. (Though here's an Alf site for you nostalgic Alf-lovers out there).
Yesterday I clicked on the "create a login" to start my own blog, and then I had to choose a user name and a password. Like every other login name I've had to create, every one I tried was already taken, even my AOL screen name (created in 8th grade), DanserVal.
I decided it was time to take VALF public.
At the end of my senior year of high school, I was part of a small posse of girls, like any good high schooler. (See the recent movies "Mean Girls" or "Saved" for a better understanding of this phenomenon). My posse consisted of myself and my two friends Hannah and Karen. Amongst a myriad of other talents, Hannah has a knack for making up nicknames that are not only ridiculous but also tend to stick for a long time. (To this day, we still call Karen "Kar-ren".) She deserves the bulk of the credit for VALF.
One particular night, our conversation turned to my initials and my nickname. Having the first name of Valerie and initials that spell VAL (Valerie Anne Lewis), I've gotten used to this being a topic of discussion. We started debating what would happen when I got married. I couldn't very well change my last name and ruin the great initials acronym. This has prompted several people to suggest I should only consider marrying a guy with a last name beginning with the letter "L". We came up with a far superior solution: simply adding another last name at the end, and another letter onto my initials. It wouldn't be pure "VAL" anymore, but it would keep the spirit of it.
We came to a consensus that the most amusing new set of initials I could get was VALF. This was not quite as cool as Kar-ren would become were she to marry her KEW to someone with an L and become KEWL. But hey, Kar-ren already had a nickname.
Thus began the era of VALF.
You may be wondering where the "Valf" title of this site came from.
Isn't it obvious?
Valf rhymes with Alf.
Need I say more?
To be entirely correct, it's actually written VALF, and there's more involved than my likeness to a cuddly 1980s alien. (Though here's an Alf site for you nostalgic Alf-lovers out there).
Yesterday I clicked on the "create a login" to start my own blog, and then I had to choose a user name and a password. Like every other login name I've had to create, every one I tried was already taken, even my AOL screen name (created in 8th grade), DanserVal.
I decided it was time to take VALF public.
At the end of my senior year of high school, I was part of a small posse of girls, like any good high schooler. (See the recent movies "Mean Girls" or "Saved" for a better understanding of this phenomenon). My posse consisted of myself and my two friends Hannah and Karen. Amongst a myriad of other talents, Hannah has a knack for making up nicknames that are not only ridiculous but also tend to stick for a long time. (To this day, we still call Karen "Kar-ren".) She deserves the bulk of the credit for VALF.
One particular night, our conversation turned to my initials and my nickname. Having the first name of Valerie and initials that spell VAL (Valerie Anne Lewis), I've gotten used to this being a topic of discussion. We started debating what would happen when I got married. I couldn't very well change my last name and ruin the great initials acronym. This has prompted several people to suggest I should only consider marrying a guy with a last name beginning with the letter "L". We came up with a far superior solution: simply adding another last name at the end, and another letter onto my initials. It wouldn't be pure "VAL" anymore, but it would keep the spirit of it.
We came to a consensus that the most amusing new set of initials I could get was VALF. This was not quite as cool as Kar-ren would become were she to marry her KEW to someone with an L and become KEWL. But hey, Kar-ren already had a nickname.
Thus began the era of VALF.
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