Made Man

From New York City: There's really no iconic "Made in the U.S.A." emblem. Sure, the words are stamped on anything and everything made in part or entirely in this country. For decades, Mexico's stenciled crates and boxes with an emblem that's the stylized profile of a screaming eagle. Before globalization Mexico's leaders had tried to replace most imports with products produced within the country. So the "Hecho en Mexico" emblem was their way to brag that it was working. The emblem's eagle resembles the one on the Mexican flag or the one drawn by the Aztecs to represent the eagle warriors, the Marines of their time. Leaving Carnegie Deli in midtown Manhattan I glimpsed a black-blue tattoo of that same logo on the arm of a 20-something busboy. It was about the size of a passport. It was aligned on the part of the inner arm where a shield strap is held, where the strap of the tefillin wraps seven times for prayer, where the tecato tracks his pleasure.

My glimpse was as long as a camera flash of a photograph not taken and questions unasked about birthplace, identity, migration, departure, exile, cultural pride, new home, loss, assimilation, and language gained and lost. The young man was leaning on a glass that was a window to chopped liver, gefilte fish pools of pickles. Head to toe, the walls were covered with glossies of A, B and C-list celebrities.

My father in law, who'd come to this deli as a kid with his uncle, noticed all the Eastern European staff who'd worked at Carnegie were gone. The Jewish vibe made him feel at home. Now, the waiters are Asian American and the rest of the staff is East Asian or Latino. He said the food wasn't as good as he remembered. I told him it wasn't the food.

The photo on this page was taken by flickr user bunchofpants. It was used under Creative Commons license.