To Serve The Language And Literacy Of Food Service Workers By Tony Mirabelli

In the essay written by Joey Franklin, the author exposes his own internal conflict, as well as the existing prejudice against fast food restaurant workers. The work is well developed, with the use of witty diction and tone, in addition to the appeals to rhetorical devices.

The space given to the bartenders is secluded to only them and is only, rarely, invaded with his approval. Whereas, the space provided for the waitress’s is often invaded by both the costumers and the bartenders. Even though the space given to the customers is also where the waitress must work it is often hard for the waitress to move through customers due to their carelessness of her presence. When the waitress’s space is invaded or when they are held back from doing their job they must always remain passive.

It is a known fact that every human being communicates through language, but perhaps a little known fact that we communicate even through the food we eat. We communicate through food all the meanings that we assign and attribute to our culture, and consequently to our identity as well. Food is not only nourishment for our bodies, but a symbol of where we come from. In order to understand the basic function of food as a necessity not only for our survival, we must look to politics, power, identity, and culture.

In Amy Tan's literacy narrative “Mother Tongue” she uses the phrase “I am not a scholar of English or literature” in bold letters the detail put into the beginning sentence of her literacy narrative set a tone of non-professionalism. The lack of expertise in writing being announced as a starter sentence leads the reading to believe Amy Tan could be writing to inform the reader on why she is not a scholar of English and Literature. Amy Tan points out her shortcomings in English to prepare her readers for her mother tongue so to speak. Amy Tran uses examples of her different kinds of English as details in her essay including her standard English and her mother tongue. Growing up in America learning English for the first time can be a difficult

Were they laughing at me? I did not understand what they were saying. I was not always bilingual. My roots and upbringing were implanted by Ukrainian principals. When my parents came from Ukraine, they did not know the English language; therefore, I was brought up only speaking and understanding Ukrainian. This caused a barrier in the way I interacted with kids my age. I was shy and timid, never leaving my parents side. Upon entering school, I had very limited knowledge of English. Making friends was hard because my accent was heavy and my school lunch smelled funny. I was mortified to go to school everyday. My papers always came back with a bit more red errors and I never did well on spelling quizzes. I lacked the ability to read books as efficiently as the kids in my class. Reading gave me the most trouble: silent vowels did not reach a recognition point, basic comprehension skills were lacking, and my words per minute was always below mediocre. Eventually, I was enrolled in an English Language Development (ELD) program for lagging behind in class. I loathed being the only kid in the class that had to leave. I was taken

Jimmy Santiago Baca’s “Coming into Language” displays a dark, yet uplifting view of the power of literacy. From his beginning in the hospital, toward the end during his imprisonment, Baca moves from the mindset of a rebellious teenager to a poetic adult. Through vivid descriptions, metaphors, the appeal to the audience’s emotions, and Baca sets up a transformational framework to show how literacy can be a way of escape. Baca’s story seeks to explain a point of view that one is more likely to become incarcerated and to struggle in life if he is uneducated. “I wrote to sublimate my rage, from a place where all hope is gone, from a madness of having been damaged too much, from a silence of killing rage” (Baca).

Many foods like Pastas, Pizza, Fish, Tacos; and more are from different countries. Foods came to this area because the immigrants and people that move to say Italy then bring the food over to our country.

When going out to eat, we don’t observe the workers of the restaurant we’re at. We become focused on our friends, our order, and even the people around the restaurant. Sure we talk with the server or smile at an employee when eye contact is made, but we never really observe how the community in the restaurants we go to are like. I want people to be informed that in order for the restaurant to be great, it all starts with its workers. These blue collar workers are the shadows when it comes to restaurant research, however they are more interesting than one would usually think. To allow people to gain more knowledge on this, I decided to do my ethnographic research on the community of restaurant workers, more specifically the community within the restaurant Sweet Tomatoes. I have been part of the community for almost three years and have been able to interact with all kinds of people that have worked there. I want people to know what goes on behind the kitchen doors and understand how the workers interact when the environment becomes stressful or relaxed, so they understand how the setting influences the employees.

English language learners and partnerships with families, communities, teacher preparation, and schools is an article within the Handbook of Urban Education written by Ana Christina Dasilva Iddings, Mary Carol Combs and Luis C. Moll which focus on creating partnerships with families, communities, teacher preparation and schools to help English Language Learners become more successful in school.

Anthony Bourdain (American chef and author), in his show, “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown: Brazil” (2013) evaluates how a country’s culture is made of more than its current circumstance. Bourdain grabs the viewers’ attention by using his personal experience and aspects of the everyday culture. His goal is to show the world that the best way to learn about a country is through active participation in the culture. His use of informal diction, coupled with cultural dialect, establishes a trusting relationship with the audience and allows him to better convey his main points without sounding condescending.

*These four old guys (definitely into their late sixties, early seventies) sell cars at one of the dealerships on the boulevard. I would bet fifty dollars that they all work for Cadillac. They come in once a week, on Friday afternoons. They love me. They like to give me a hard time, ask why I don’t love them anymore, when I’m going to run away with them, etc, etc. They are caricatures of car salesmen but are obviously unaware of this. They hold court in Eat Well like it’s 1965 at the Sands, talking in loud voices and telling stories about one another to each other. (“This guy here, one time he says to me, ‘Paulie’…”)

When entering a grocery store, most people don’t take the time to stop and observe their surroundings, for their soul purpose at that instant is to purchase what very food they may need for that day or maybe even for that week. However, through all the haste of wanting to go in and out of grocery stores as fast as one can, most are unaware of the very culture that they too are now apart of, the interactions, both verbal and through people’s body language that they are experiencing, how people look and dress, even what is considered appropriate behavior although not specifically written down. Culture is all around us, and we all contribute to it, whether it is through our norms, values, symbols, or mental maps of reality (Guest 2014, 38-43). That is why through this assignment, I took the time to observe the culture experienced in the American grocery store Stater Brothers, the ethnical Filipino grocery store Seafood City, while also taking the time to reflect on my own personal views of what I thought was “normal” through my experience working in Northgate Gonzalez Market, a Mexican grocery store for three years.

‘The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working-Class Life’ follows Hoggart’s original works from 1957, in which he sought to identify the culture of the northern working classes and determine the impact caused by prevailing social changes - which at the time of publication was completely unheard of. Our society is forever evolving through ‘massification’, in Hoggart’s 2009 works he returns to his findings to compare and contrast the impact of these evolving effects. Focusing particularly on movies, magazines and other various forms of media.

Food is very much a part of pop culture, and the beliefs, practices, and trends in a culture affect its eating practices. Pop culture includes the ideas and objects generated by a society, including foods, and other systems, as well as the impact of these ideas and objects on society. For example, Mcdonald's is another of the thousands of fast food chains that populate our cities though they often use the term “popular culture” only to refer to media forms. Their popularity has also increased internationally. Although all humans need food to survive, people's food habits and how they obtain, prepare, and consume food, are the result of learned behaviors. Mcdonald’s, like other food chains, has made an effort to ‘localize’ its products so that they will be more successful in each different cultural context. These collective behaviors, as well as the values and attitudes they reflect, come to represent a group’s pop culture.

The achievement of oral language is a normal development for the performance of most children. The child’s (ren) understanding to communicate will began to increase with age, however, it will not establish the growth increase process right away but it will contribute to the perfection progress as the children starts to read and transform into a more experienced reader. Learning and communicating more adequately