Washington U. Student Columnist Upset New Campus Convenience Store Uses Term ‘Bodega’
“My hometown, Lawrence, is about 85% Hispanic and has the second highest concentration of Dominicans in the United States”
For the campus left, everything is a problem. Even this.
The College Fix reports:
WashU student upset new campus convenience store uses term ‘bodega’
Washington University in St. Louis recently opened a 24-hour convenience store at its popular campus student hangout Ursa’s Fireside.
The store was named “Bear Bodega” following a dining services contest … with a prize going to the student whose moniker was chosen.
According to a WashU University Services news release, the Bear Bodega utilizes Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology for “a fully checkout-free experience,” and offers “a variety of grab-and-go meals, snacks, beverages, and commonly purchased convenience items.”
Contributors to the student newspaper Student Life were less than enthusiastic; earlier this year Senior Forum Editor David Ciorba chided the checkout system as putting money in Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ pocket instead of offering employment opportunities to the local community.
This past week, contributor Lissy Portorreal expressed similar sentiments, but especially her displeasure at the use of “bodega.”
“While I am not blaming the student who submitted this name,” writes Portorreal, “it was a moment of oversight for WashU to choose this name without thinking of the cultural significance that comes with the word ‘bodega.’”
She says using “bodega” for the new store “contributes to the erasure of Caribbean culture and traditions,” especially Puerto Rican and Dominican.
My hometown, Lawrence, is about 85% Hispanic and has the second highest concentration of Dominicans in the United States — second only to New York City. Lawrence is a densely populated but small city, and due to its prominent Latine population, it has countless bodegas.
I spent most of my summers as a child at my grandma’s house. Her home sat in the middle of a one way street, but twice a week she sent me — along with my sister and my cousin — up the road to the bodega. …
A bodega is more than just a convenience store — it is a social center. Neighbors would check in with one another, gossip about an ongoing divorce, or ask about your extended family back in the Caribbean. …
The new Bear Bodega has no cashiers, no human connection, and no bodega man to take care of the community. It will be nothing like the bodegas I grew up with.
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Comments
“Ciorba chided the checkout system as putting money in Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ pocket instead of offering employment opportunities to the local community.”
He was then seen making a phone call with a touchtone pad, putting tens of thousands of switchboard operators on the breadline.
He later boarded an elevator and pressed a button for his desired floor, not giving a second thought to the starving homeless elevator operators his actions put out of work,
People like him and the rest of the snivelers would complain if they had nothing about which to complain.
grab-and-go meals, snacks, beverages, and commonly purchased convenience items.”
to lefty that means free either way
“It will be nothing like the bodegas I grew up with.”
Shut up and attend your “university.”
“Bodega” in the sense of “corner store” is a term that evolved in New York City, not in any Spanish-speaking country, and is used in that sense almost exclusively in NYC and communities with roots there.
For this reason it’s really an English word, not a Spanish one. In Spanish a “bodega” is a wine shop or something like that. So there’s no “cultural appropriation” here, even if that were a thing, which it isn’t.
You’re such an NYC snob but in this case I’ll gladly take it just to own another grievance monger.
“Cultural erasure”
In what sense could this ever erase the culture of those people?
Somebody has been taught to be aggrieved by EVERYTHING, and it shows.
Before continuing your college time, maybe you should go live awhile among normal people – call it a ‘sabbatical’ – and touch grass and learn some of what we call life.
“Somebody has been taught to be aggrieved by EVERYTHING, and it shows.”
It’s why there are cats in her future instead of men.
Not if the cats get a say in the matter.
They’d eat her if she didn’t appropriate them into being therapy for loneliness.
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