Interesting reading. I came through Amarillo 7 or 8 years ago, on the way back from Colorado, but stopped only for gas. (My, we have some very long stretches of nothingness in our state!) May have been my first time ever - can’t remember if we ever went through when I was traveling with my family as a child. Never been interested in the Big Steak place or the buried Cadillacs place but one of these places would have been a nice stop on that very long drive.
Ethiopian on the high plains of Texas? Yes. And how does someone from the Spice Coast of India wind up running a gas station in Dimmit, TX? Life is strange.
Even from a great distance, we’re rooting for the Ethiopian restaurant and Spice Island gas station, because not only are those families taking care of themselves, they are Exhibit A of “only in America”, the kind of Exhibit A we need to see in increasing numbers these challenging days.
Laotian was the first cuisine I remember being surprised that Amarillo had. I would have expected at least a mention of Laotian food in that article, but maybe the article was focusing on more recent international cuisine.
I’m guilty of thinking about the smaller cities and more rural areas of Texas as lacking diversity of culture and not being welcoming of the immigrant, the outsider, the Other. Kinda like how some people think of all the land between the two coasts (“flyover country”)… including where I live.
The article took me by surprise (“Amarillo?!?”) and made me reflect on my own misconceptions and assumptions.
