An Ode to Taquerias
An Ode to Taquerias
Jennifer Drinkwater. An Ode to Taquerias, acrylic on wood, 24” x 24” x 1.5” , 2025.
An Ode to Taquerias arrives wired and ready to hang. Each panel is handcrafted by mounting a smooth plywood surface onto a sturdy, mitred wooden frame that provides depth and support to the painting. The sides of the panel are sanded and finished for smoothness.
Please allow 3-4 weeks for shipping and handling. Shipping costs are $50 anywhere in the United States. If you are international, please email me at jennifer@whatsgoodproject.com.
Twenty percent of profit supports ArtPlace Mississippi, an nonprofit arts organization in Greenwood, Mississippi.
P.S. Check out a stop-motion animation of the creation of An Ode to Taquerias.
In 2019, I spent a day with Yolande Van Herdeen, an expat South African whose path serendipitously led her to Greenwood, Mississippi. When I met her, Yolande was serving as the artist-in-residence at ArtPlace Mississippi, a community art center in downtown Greenwood offering classes and programs for all ages. We ended our visit at San Miguel Arcangel Tienda y Taqueria in Greenwood, which inspired An Ode to Taquerias.
The reasons this meal stuck with me were twofold: 1) it was fabulous, full stop. 2) Yolande casually pointed out that this place, San Miguel Arcangel Tienda y Taqueria, was the only place in town where everybody eats, no matter race, age, income level, ethnicity. E’erbody. And in my amateur hour opinion, she wasn’t wrong.
So consider this an unofficial case study/homage to the power of Mexican restaurants, based on a tiny bit of data and my gut (a strong combo).
Did you know that 85% of counties in our country have a Mexican restaurant? I sure didn’t until I read this article by the Pew Research Group. That means that 99% of the US population has local access to a Mexican restaurant. Which is a pretty big deal. Matter of fact, Iowa has around 790 Mexican restaurants and 65 non-Mexican Latin American restaurants. That’s nearly one for each of Iowa’s 947 towns. And just to put a fine point on it, 75% of Iowa’s towns have fewer than 750 people. Mississippi has around 625 Mexican restaurants for its 300 communities.
And to add another layer to this (remember this is my gut talking here), Mexican restaurants typically embody qualities of third spaces. They’re on neutral ground, attract folks of all backgrounds, enable conversations, have regulars, located in neighborhoods, and are not typically super fancy.