Wrapped in Corn Husks: A Memory of Belonging

The first time I tasted tamales, I fell in love, if it’s possible to fall in love with food. But it wasn’t just the tamales. As anyone who’s ever eaten something unforgettable will tell you, it’s never just the food. It’s the place. The people. The moment. The way everything slows down just enough to notice that something is shifting, not just in your tastebuds, but in your sense of the world.

People travel the globe chasing these kinds of moments. The steak Florentine tastes different on a villa’s patio overlooking the hills of Tuscany than it does at the new steakhouse in your own town. Not only because of the ingredients, but because the moment is steeped in meaning. You are somewhere. You are with someone. You remember.

The first time I had tamales, I was a child. They were handed to me in a migrant housing community in Oregon, where families working the local farms lived during harvest. The tamales were wrapped in corn husks, warm to the touch. Women stood in a communal kitchen between rows of small, metal-roofed homes that looked like short barns, making food with the efficiency of those who have done it a thousand times and the tenderness of those who know food can say what words sometimes can’t.

We were visitors, my sisters and I. We had tagged along with my mom to deliver clothes and toiletries gathered by our church. I didn’t know exactly where we were going, only that we were going with her, and that it was summer.

School was out. The kids were running through the grassy patches beneath the trees, calling out to each other, mostly in Spanish. Some of them smiled as we pulled up. Others just kept playing. And as we stepped into that unfamiliar place, something in me felt small. Not afraid exactly, but unsure. I didn’t speak the language. I had never been in a space like this. I didn’t know the rules.

But children are quick to erase lines adults work hard to draw.

We were playing tag within minutes, racing across the grass like we belonged there. Some kids translated for us, but mostly it didn’t matter. Laughter needs no translation.

I didn’t know much about immigration. I had heard adults talk about it, though never to me. What I knew was this: these families spoke Spanish, many had come from Mexico, and Mexico felt very far away. What I didn’t know, not really, was how people arrived here, or what was required of them. I didn’t know what it cost them to be here.

I also didn’t understand, at that time, how recently my own family had gone without.

We had just moved to Oregon. Before that, we lived in a trailer in the Midwest, and I slept on a couch. I don’t think I knew we were poor until we weren’t anymore. My mom’s job in agriculture gave us a rental house. I had my own room. My own bed. And maybe that new awareness of having more made me notice, even at that age, when others had less—and when they gave anyway.

Because that’s what happened. We showed up to give. But they gave more.

They invited us to eat.

There were many things, but I remember the tamales, beans, and rice. The tamale in my hand was warm and soft, the cornmeal outer layer gently holding its shape. I didn’t know what to do with it at first. Thankfully, I watched someone else unwrap theirs before biting into the husk. I remember being curious, a little unsure, but I wasn’t going to decline it. And I’m glad I didn’t.

It was mildly spicy. Nothing wild, but more heat than my Midwest mouth was used to. The kids watched us with wide eyes and bursting grins as we tried not to cough.

“Hot, hot, hot,” we gasped, and they giggled at us, in that way kids do when they’ve found something funny that isn’t mean.

We laughed too.

I hate being laughed at, but I didn’t feel humiliated. I felt included. Even this, my own discomfort, had been welcomed to the table.

Looking back, I don’t remember what my mom said on the way there or the way home. I just remember that she brought us. She didn’t have to. She could have left us at home. And I think, now, that choice said something loud. Maybe louder than any speech would have. She didn’t paint the people there as scary. She didn’t warn us to be careful. She simply said yes to showing up.

And in that yes, I learned something that day that no headline has ever managed to erase.

I know what people say. I’ve heard the language. “Illegals.” “They’re taking from us.” “They don’t belong here.” I’ve watched the policies passed in fear. I’ve seen the images. Children in cages. Families separated. Headlines screaming that we should be afraid. I’ve watched people treat whole groups as criminals because of a few. I’ve seen how we’ve justified cruelty as safety.

But I also remember the kids who laughed with us, not at us.

I remember the women who wrapped food into husks and handed it to strangers.

I remember how little they had, and how much they gave.

And I remember the moment I realized that belonging isn’t something you have to speak the language to offer.

Since that day, I’ve chased the perfect tamale. I’ve tasted dozens. Some were wonderful. Some not. But none have ever come close to the ones from that evening. Not because they weren’t well made, but because no tamale will ever taste like that moment again.

It was never just the food. It was what it carried.

Sometimes I think that if our country knew how to sit down and eat together. If we could play tag before talking politics. If we could laugh at spice instead of igniting it. Maybe we’d stop being so afraid.

Maybe we’d see that what we fear losing is already lost when we treat generosity as a threat.

Maybe we’d learn that the people we try to push out are the ones who have something holy to teach us.

That day, they gave.
And I remember.
And I will not unlearn it.