Don’t bite off more than you can chew.
If something is overwhelming — whether today’s news, or the $39.95 Carne a La Tampiqueña platter at Nuevo Leon Restaurant, 3657 W. 26th Street — just cut it down to manageable size. That works for both ceaseless national turmoil and dinner. I got the half order.
I was there last week at the invitation of Susana Mendoza, the Illinois comptroller. Not a personal invitation, mind you — we don’t know each other — but a general plea, delivered by one of her now trademark slick videos, complete with aerial drone shots and Illinois farmer Dick Bigger Jr.
Seeing the fun Mendoza has with Bigger’s name — which got her campaign video on Stephen Colbert — reminded me that there are two types of politicians: the stiff, robot from Mars sort — no names, please, you know who I mean — and easygoing, Judy Baar Topinka types. Proud possessors of quirks, like Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas, twirling her baton at the Pride Parade. Public servants I bestow with the ultimate compliment: “actual human beings.”
Into that fold goes Mendoza, whose official portfolio includes neither dining with the press, nor plumping the neighborhood where she was born.
But one of the countless negative results of the Trump administration’s war on America has been ICE raids deadening business in ethnic neighborhoods such as Little Village.
“It was tremendous,” said Mendoza, noting traffic at Nuevo Leon fell by three-quarters. “They went from 280 tickets a day to 67.”
“Locals are not coming out,” confirmed Nuevo Leon owner Laura Gutierrez. “We did have a couple incidents, people picked up, right down the block. When people from the neighborhood see that, they stay inside the house.”
I initially wondered whether Mendoza worries she is urging immigrants into harm’s way. But I’d misunderstood the audience: folks like me.
“We’re encouraging people who are not from the community to come to the community,” she said. “That’s why we did it in English.”
It works. I arrived an hour early and happily wandered 26th Street, an area I’d never visited before.
I did have a goal: El Nopal Bakery, 3648 W. 26th St. Having lived on Logan Boulevard for several years, I developed a deep affection for treats I think of as “ginger pigs,” actually called marranitos or cochinitos — “little pigs” — big, thick, soft gingerbread cookies, roughly porcine in shape.
The goal, Mendoza said, is “to have people maybe venture out of their comfort zone. So many people are talking about this issue, [wondering] ‘How can we help?’ The best way is lifting up the businesses by coming into these communities, where people are afraid to come, and spend money.”
I did my best, buying two ginger pigs, and would have spent more, except many stores are geared toward princesses — well,15-year-old girls on their quinceañeras. Though some aimed at a younger crowd, and my eye was caught by an attractive green number in the window of Pink & Blue Kids Wear, 3437 W. 26th St., that seems perfect for a certain as-yet-unborn girl.
I went inside; it seemed reasonably priced for such elegance, at $120, but as one unaccustomed to this kind of purchase, I snapped a photo and sent it to her due-in-June mother, who, while uncertain of what occasion would call for it, pronounced the garment “very adorable.” I decided to put off the purchase, for now, but to return soon to collect it, and more ginger pigs.
“All of us can help by coming here and patronizing these businesses,” said Mendoza, who doesn’t plan to stop her efforts at Little Village. Chinatown is next, and then other affected Chicago communities.
Why is Mendoza straying from her usual duties?
“As comptroller, I want more people spending their money and seeing revenue grow because people are having a good time and choosing to spend their resources,” she said. “This community is strong because of how vibrant this corridor is.”
In generations past, Americans were called upon to help their country by building roads for the Civilian Conservation Corps or storming the beaches at Normandy. Here, you can score one for the good guys by wolfing down some sizzling flank steak alongside Laura Gutierrez’s grandmother’s mole. It doesn’t get much easier than that.
“People have said, how can we help, and rather than complaining about how bad things are, let’s get butts in the seats,” said Mendoza. “You can come here and have a great time, the best Mexican food, really learn about the city and you’re helping at the same time.”
“What we need to do in this country, we need to embrace each other,” said Gutierrez. “We need to be compassionate to each other. Because without each other, we’re nothing.”
