Member-only story
No, That’s Not How You Say It
A brief history of my relationship with one of my favorite sandwiches
Americans talk funny. We don’t think we do, but we do. We’re usually too busy talking at or over, or directly through each other to notice. Every so often, though, we stop long enough to listen to one another and then laugh and point.
The middle-aged Persian woman I hired to teach me how to drive made fun of me when I mispronounced Cahuenga Boulevard. I had just moved to Los Angeles a few months prior from New York City, where I considered myself a native despite the disagreements of many native New Yorkers. Frank Lloyd Wright once said, “tip the world over on its side, and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.” So I floated across the country — as millions before me had — to seek my fortune.
Her teaching method was an unorthodox form of politically incorrect mockery. When I tapped the brakes too hard, she’d tell me not to drive like a “Chinaman” and then pretended to fling her head back and forth as if she were bowing quickly. This pantomime made her roar. She casually informed me that African-Americans were notoriously terrible at changing lanes. Don’t get her started on Mexicans. Seriously, don’t. She was, to be charitable, racially insensitive.
