Melissa Bailey Photo
After East Haven’s mayor’s words made her cry, Reyna Catalán invited him to Middletown Avenue to try her tacos — and witness the sacrifice immigrants make.
Catalán, a 35-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, made the invitation Thursday morning at J’s Luncheonette at 48 Middletown Ave. in New Haven, a Guatemalan-Mexican restaurant tucked into an industrial stretch below I‑91.
The cook echoed widespread outrage over comments East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo made Tuesday after the feds arrested four of his cops for allegedly targeting, brutalizing, and falsely arresting Latinos as a matter of course, and then lying about it with the help of higher-ups. When a reporter from New York’s WPIX TV asked Maturo what he’d do for the Latino community, he responded, “I might have tacos when I get home.” (Watch it here.)
The remarks brought Catalán to tears Thursday as she discussed the sacrifice she has made to support her 11-year-old son and family in Guatemala.
She said she moved to New Haven five years ago from the countryside outside Salamá, Guatemala. She and her husband moved to the States to find work to support their family back home, she said.
When she got to New Haven, Catalán spent two years doing construction work as part of a roofing crew.
“I worked like a man,” she said. She said it was intimidating at first to work so high up in the air, but she did it for her son.
Three years ago, she left the roofing business to join the kitchen at J’s Luncheonette, a cozy hut tucked between the American Medical Response and the city’s public works department.
The business is named after Jorge Marroquin, who owns the restaurant along with his wife, Gilda. The couple hails from Guatemala City; they serve a mix of Guatemalan and Mexican food.
Catalán started work at 9 a.m. Thursday, chopping toppings for tacos and preparing beans and sauces for the day’s lunch rush. In a break from food preparation, she was asked about Maturo’s comments. Gilda Marroquin explained what East Haven’s mayor had said.
Catalán quickly began to cry.
She said Latinos don’t come to America to “take anything from anyone.”
“One comes to work,” she said, to provide a better life for the next generation. She’s now raising a 1‑year-old baby, whom she cares for when she’s finished with her six-hour shift.
“We’re helping our families,” Catalán said.
Marroquin, who’s been in New Haven for 33 years, added that immigrants aren’t just helping their own families, but providing a backbone of labor that sustains the economy.
Catalán said it hurts to hear discriminatory remarks, when “we’re struggling” to move forward in life, at a great sacrifice.
“We’re very far away from our families,” she said. When her son turns 12 on Sunday, she won’t be there to celebrate with him.
It’s painful to be split in two, she said: “You keep half a heart here, and half a heart in your country.”
Catalán and Marroquin invited Maturo to come to their restaurant to better understand what Latino immigrants are going through.
Catalán said she’d make him one of each kind of taco the restaurant offers: tacos al pastor, carne enchilada, carne asada, pollo and lengua de rez.
She said she’d feed him so much that “he will become very fat.”
“I want him to see the sacrifice that one makes” to live as an immigrant in this country, she said, and the all the hard work that’s involved.
To make the tacos, the meat needs to be cooked for three hours. The hand-made tamales take five hours, she said.
To prepare the beans alone, she boils dry beans for three hours, blends the beans into a smooth texture, then cooks them for three more hours with onion and lard.
Catalán prepared three tacos Thursday morning, carefully heating the corn tortillas on a grill, scooping in the meat, then pinching the right amount of lettuce, cilantro, tomato and cheese on top.
She learned to make the tacos from a Mexican woman when she started working at J’s Luncheonette. While Maturo referred to “tacos” as the token Latino meal, they’re predominantly prepared in Mexico. Other Latino cuisines have a wide range of other foods.
Around 11 a.m., Catalán set to work on her next project — making a Guatemalan specialty called pipián rojo, which is made with chicken, vegetables and a spicy red sauce over rice.
“You should see” what that dish involves, she said. The process will take “many more hours.”
If Maturo makes the trip to New Haven, he might get a taste of that dish, too.