“At Angelita’s, my favorite food was a plain bean burrito in a flour tortilla. It was simple, but tasty! I loved bean burritos. They were my comfort food. They were my “little friends!” For my first day at school, my aunt made me three of them. She wrapped them up tightly in aluminum foil and then packed them in a brown paper sack. At lunchtime, in the cafeteria, I got ready to greet my little friends. I was nervous, as it was my first day of school, but I knew the burritos would soon warm my stomach and comfort me. I looked around the lunch room and saw other kids with their cafeteria trays and their perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crust neatly trimmed off and their bottle of juices and bags of Fritos and then . . . I pulled out a burrito. “Hey! What’s that?” A gringa girl shouted at me, pointing at my burrito. “Uh . . . nothing! Nada!” I replied as I quickly shoved it back into the sack. I was hungry, but every time I got ready to pull one out, it seemed as if there was another kid ready to stare and point at me. I was embarrassed! I loved my burritos, but in that cafeteria, I was ashamed of them. They suddenly felt very heavy and cold. They suddenly felt very Mexican. I was ashamed of my little friends and so . . . I went hungry.”
“I am the burrito wrapped up in a blanket. Eat my warmth. ”
“They were gone and I missed them but even so I was very happy. For the rest of my life no matter where on this planet earth I went and no matter how scared or confused I got, I could wait until dark and look up into the night sky and see my three friends again and my heart would swell with love of them and make me strong and clearheaded.”
“I stared at the doors and rewound the evening wondering how I got myself in this latest predicament. Without lemon drops to blame (I had diet with my spicy beef burrito), I could only blame the power tools. Now what normal girl got turned on by power tools? I was so weird!”
“My Spanish is limited to burrito and taco,”
“My Saturday Night. My Saturday night is like a microwave burrito. Very tough to ruin something that starts out so bad to begin with.”