NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

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ILLUMINATING THE MYSTERIES—AND WONDERS—ALL AROUND US EVERY DAY

I WAS ORDERING A BURGER in Cincinnati the first

time I began to sense that the Midwest was somehow

familiar to me, which is to say that the Midwest was

somehow Latin American.

It was a Saturday afternoon, pre-COVID, and peo-

ple crowded the tables at Zip’s Cafe, a small restau-

rant whose interior was as dark as it probably had

been the first time its doors opened in the 1920s.

The waitress wanted to know if someone would be

joining me. No, I said, slightly annoyed because I had

grown up with a mother and three aunties, all from

Colombia, who did not believe that anyone, let alone

a woman, should do anything alone.

The waitress did not notice my sigh. Distracted

with full tables, she took my order and moved on —

and for some reason, perhaps since I was alone and

thinking of my mother, it seemed that when the

waitress walked away, a curtain parted before me.

I The classic burger joint came into focus. There were

BY DAISY HERNÁNDEZ

BIG EXTENDED FAMILIES. SMALL-TOWN HEART. TIES TO THE LAND, TO

NEIGHBORS, TO HOME. HAVE YOU LIVED HERE BEFORE? NO, AND YES.

How the Midwest

Is Latin American

VOL. 241 NO. 6

IN THIS SECTION

Well-Built Water Lilies

Trekking Nepal Crags

Horseshoes Get Lucky

Testing a Cave’s Depths

JUNE 2022 15