The burger stand sat on the corner, where the streetlights flickered and the pavement cracked like the skin on my mom’s hands. We sold burgers, egg rolls, burritos, and extra ketchup—yeah, we charged for that. Ten cents a packet, because in my parents’ world, nothing came free. Not ketchup, not extra napkins, not the American Dream.
I used to slouch behind the counter, hoping no one I knew would stop by, praying I wouldn’t be the kid with the weird parents which charged for condiments. The burger stand smelled like grease and sacrifice, but mostly sacrifice. Every drop of sweat my mom wiped away, every box of soda she lugged from the back—there was a weight to it that I was too young and too embarrassed to carry.
I’d watch my parents behind that counter, the two of them constantly fighting until they couldn’t work together anymore. Their English was jagged, clunky, but they spoke the language of survival fluently. I didn’t see it like that then. All I saw were ketchup packets, tiny symbols of how small we seemed in a world that wanted us to stay in the margins.
The other day, I was at a burger stand supporting a local mom and pop. Something snapped in me, like a long-held breath finally released. I remembered how, back in the day, I couldn’t wait to get away from that place. But now, in some twisted way, I missed it—the stand, the grease, even the damn ketchup.
The truth is, my parents weren’t running a burger stand. They were running the hardest marathon no one talks about—the immigrant hustle, the daily grind of trying to make something out of nothing. They weren’t just flipping patties; they were flipping the script on what it meant to survive in a country that didn’t make room for them.
And me? I’m still catching up, still learning that the things I used to be embarrassed by were the real gold, wrapped in grease-stained paper and handed over with a side of hard-earned pride. Ketchup was never just ketchup. It was a lesson I hadn’t been ready to learn. Until now.
