TThroughout his life, celebrity chef and author Anthony Bourdain was unequivocal in his belief that the U.S. restaurant industry could not function without immigrant labor. These essential workers, Bourdain argued, were not only willing to do jobs that most U.S.-born citizens would look down on, but they also did them better and faster.
“People have different opinions about what we should do about immigration in the future,” Bourdain told the newspaper. Houston Press in 2007. “But let’s at least be honest about who cooks in America Now. Who we rely on – who we've relied on – for decades. The stark fact is that the entire restaurant industry in America would shut down overnight and never recover if current immigration laws were enforced quickly and thoroughly across the board.”
Today, the U.S. restaurant industry employs millions of immigrant workers, both documented and undocumented, who now find themselves in the crosshairs of military-level immigration enforcement that threatens their very existence. Mark Meyer's new book Voices from the kitchena collection of 27 harrowing transcribed interviews with current and former employees of his restaurant group, gives these workers a human face at a time when immigrants are systematically dehumanized as a result of nativist policies.
In 1999, Meyer co-founded the Bowery Group, which includes popular New York City restaurants such as Cookshop, Shuka, Shukette and Vic's. Having worked in professional kitchens for over 40 years, he has a keen understanding of how important immigrants are to the restaurant workforce both in the U.S. and abroad. Inspired by oral historians Studs Terkel and Svetlana Alexievich, Meyer began conducting informal interviews with employees three years ago, stealing moments in prep kitchens and empty cafeterias and transcribing responses for archival purposes. A chance visit to Mexico and the encouragement of local friends convinced him to compile the stories into a full-length volume, published in November by Beacon Press.
The book is not intended as a political statement. Meyer had been approached in the past to write cookbooks, but he never felt comfortable creating a book that didn't mention the people behind the scenes—farmers, dishwashers, porters, waiters and line cooks—without whom his restaurants would not be possible.
“I have a ton of recipes, but something just wasn’t working for me,” Meyer said. “We wouldn't have these wonderful ingredients. We wouldn't have the staff to produce the food. We wouldn't have the people to build the restaurants. We wouldn't have the guy who cleans the restaurant at night and goes to a second job in the morning. Those are the stories that make it work. That was in my head all the time.”
According to National Restaurant Association report this year, 22% of restaurant and food service employees in the United States were born outside the country. In some states – especially those with a higher concentration of independent establishments, such as California, New York and Texas – this percentage exceeds 30%.
Voices from the Kitchen subjects come from all over the world—Bangladesh, Bosnia, Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Ireland and more—which Meyer says illustrates the diversity of the restaurant community, which he considers one of its greatest strengths. “I was shocked at how some people's lives were threatened in their home countries or what they had to go through to get here,” he said.
Many of its employees work multiple jobs to survive and have been estranged from their families and homelands for decades. The book includes heartbreaking stories from immigrants like Jacqueline, a former nun from Lima, Peru, who started out as a cook and later became a morning shift supervisor at Shuka. Returning home, she was robbed at gunpoint of $30,000 in borrowed funds while running a makeshift clothing business and illegal currency exchange. Jenny, a line cook from Bogota, Colombia, was stabbed by her abusive ex-husband, puncturing one of her lungs and nearly killing her. Mohammed, a dishwasher from Gambia, has not seen his parents for 23 years. Jairo, a bus passenger and food vendor, learned that his grandfather had been kidnapped and killed in his hometown near Puebla, Mexico, even after his family paid a ransom to his captors.
“There is no single explanation for what motivated countless people to seek work in New York City restaurants,” Meyer wrote in the book’s foreword. “Each of us had something we needed to leave behind—a need to hide, to escape, to break the patterns of the past.”
Some of Meyer's subjects rose to the highest positions in his company. Anna Marie McCalla, an Irish immigrant who overstayed her J-1 visa after graduating from college 35 years ago, is now director of operations and partner (she has since been granted legal status). Carla Azcona, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who graduated from culinary school and worked her way up from line cook to executive chef, now runs the kitchen at Shuka, the Bowery Group's Middle Eastern-Mediterranean-inspired restaurant downtown.
Their stories illustrate how the restaurant industry is a constant and reliable source of opportunity for immigrants. But many of these workers are often overqualified for the entry-level positions they are offered. “Many of us come from backgrounds where we had jobs that we were proud of,” said Fatou Ouattara, chef and co-owner of Akádi in Portland, Oregon, who immigrated to the U.S. from Ivory Coast in 2009 to escape political unrest. “At home, I worked for my dad in finance, and when I moved here, I never thought I'd have to wash dishes and clean toilets to begin with. But that's the story for a lot of us.”
Angel Vazquez, a former Shukette employee, was a lawyer and activist before he fled Venezuela in 2016 to escape political persecution. Despite his previous career, he came to the US speaking little English and took a job as a dishwasher. Today, he runs an Italian restaurant on weekends to supplement his income as a patient navigator in a medical office. “I've learned to do different things while I've been here,” Vasquez said, “which I think has helped me grow as a person.”
But even though Vasquez makes more money than he could at home, he is increasingly worried about the growing threat of immigration raids across the country. He said he almost never goes out anymore, despite having the proper papers, to avoid the risk of arrest.
Restaurant owners are also worried. “If I lose even a couple of key players on my kitchen team, my restaurants won't be able to function,” said Jamie Kenyon, executive chef and co-owner of Bottino and 'ino in New York. Kenyon, an immigrant himself who came to the U.S. with his family from Manchester, England, when he was 14 years old, is familiar with the challenges of making a name for himself in a new country after building a reputation at renowned restaurants like Daniel and Bar Boulud. “My kitchen staff understand the DNA of my business, which is irreplaceable. They take pride in the restaurant.”
Rosa Maria Sanchez has worked with Bowery Group in various capacities for over 15 years. Although most guests who dine at Rosie's in the East Village never realize it, this casual Mexican restaurant is named after the soft-spoken waiter from El Salvador who was part of the team that opened it in 2015. Her journey to this country had many tragic twists and turns: she was sexually abused by her father as a child, and her caravan was brutally attacked while trying to reach the United States. But Sanchez hopes sharing her story of resilience will remind people that immigrants are hardworking people who deserve dignity and respect.
“It was like therapy,” she said. “But I hope my story shows people that there is always light at the end of a dark tunnel, and we should always look for that light.”
