"Help me do nails!" With a devious smile, he pointed to a packet of synthetic pink nails. "I bought at dollar store 'cause they so beautiful," he continued in his heavily accented Nepali-English. I placed each decorative nail on Naresh's respective finger, watching him “Ooh” and “Ahh” in delight. He stroked his face with his newest accessories and gave me a seductive wink, flashing a mouth of crooked teeth. I laughed and kicked open the kitchen doors, knowing that I had orders to take and smiles to force, but hating to leave my favorite flamboyant, pot-bellied chef who looked and talked like no one I had ever known.
Three months before, I was a 15-year-old on a desperate search for money. I was sick of summer gardening and cleaning for neighbors. I wanted a job – a real job. I spent days scouring local ads and pestering shop owners, only to be disappointed by people's seemingly unreasonable hesitation in hiring a high school freshman. When I was about to give up, an Indian couple having lunch near me at a café one day overheard my dilemma. Without more than an introduction, they offered me a job at their French-Asian fusion restaurant. I accepted immediately.
Fusion on Main. A grand, colonial building stood on the corner of the busiest street of the sleepiest town. The dining room was designed with precision, from the appropriately placed Asian art, to the perfectly folded bright orange napkins.
Behind the kitchen's doors lived everything that wasn't manicured. Within this white, upper-class community breathed one small room of cultural chaos. Languages collided and coiled upon one another, mixing English, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, and Russian. The dishwashers were Mexican, and despite their limited English, would smile with gold teeth and play music on transistor radios. The main chefs were Nepali, and they reminisced about the lives they left behind while cooking meals brewed with spices I had never smelled. I drank homemade teas sprinkled with basil leaves and ginger, and ate goat doused in fiery curries. Janusz manned the fryer. With his muscle shirts, slicked-back hair, and full-sleeve tattoos, he resembled a Russian mafia kingpin in the witness protection program. He loved his refurbished Mustang more than anything, except Dickens, and we would spend dead Sunday afternoons discussing classic literature. “Zat Deekins,” he’d say in his Russian accent corrupted by years of living in Brooklyn projects. “Heez a geenyuz.”
The dining area was a reflection of suburban New Jersey. Everyone ordered Pad Thai; it was safe, familiar, and everyone knows noodles. I drifted among the tables, among the strands of pearls and pairs of loafers, overhearing anniversary toasts and couples on double dates discussing the perils of parenthood.
These people were nice. They looked like me. In some ways, they were me. But I couldn't wait to get back to the kitchen. I was an upper-middle class white girl serving people of my same demographic, and yet I often found myself cringing at their conversations, trying to keep my cool when I overheard customers loudly enunciating at Sandeep, the heavily accented Indian waiter. I couldn’t wait to get back to the kitchen, where Rajan, the head chef told me about the year he spent working as an in-home cook for a wealthy family in Abu Dhabi, where Luis, the manager, told me about the young daughter he left behind in Goa two years ago to try to make a living in the US. It was where thoughts, lives, and experiences were different from my own. Through their stories, I discovered a world I didn't know existed, a world where vivacity coexisted with inequality and hardship.
I started to seek out these experiences--to learn about people who dressed and spoke unlike the people I grew up with. I became involved in my school's Diversity Club, striving to create an environment that facilitates open discussion between people--a discussion that, at its core, is a sharing of cultures and a celebration of differences. During the fall of my junior year, school paid for me to attend the Student Diversity Leadership Conference in San Diego, a two-day gathering of over 1,700 high school students from across the country and world. It was a time of collective reflection, connection, and embracement, focused on conversation about race, gender, sexuality, socio-economic status, age, religion, and ability. It was a recognition of privilege. It made me think about others, about myself, and about how I want to always keep my eyes wide open – to the experiences, the stories, the uniqueness of each of us.
Fusion was such an apt name for an Indian owned restaurant where Russian, Mexican and Nepali workers created Thai/French cuisine served by a 15-year-old Jewish girl from Jersey. It was my refuge. The melding of cultures, languages, personalities and countries was invigorating. I loved every oddity of that place, from Naresh's high-pitched squeals, to Janusz's greaser intellect. I loved how different we were. I loved how similar we were.
The restaurant closed at the end of 2010. The tiny miracle that brought us together vanished, and along with it, the vibrancy of the kitchen. I lost touch with the people who, through their openness and humor, made exotic familiar. Although my weekends are no longer full of Luis' soccer dreams, or Sandeep's holistic medicinal secrets, I will always carry them with me, "'cause they so beautiful."