Albondigas

It's a soup... And a metaphor.

On one side of the street, a Mexican/Cuban restaurant offers tasty "albondigas" every day. On the other side, at the casino's cafe, it's part of a rotating soups of the day menu, as "meatball soup."

That's what it is, meatball soup from Mexico ... And the English name sounds perfectly natural when said by a middle-aged white waitress from Kentucky. But what if she was a chicana from Sinaloa, Chiapas or Veracruz?

Management asked the casino's multiethnic waitstaff not to use Spanish words to describe the food to Anglos... A Hispanic waitress admitted it when I asked if Wednesday's chicken soup came with tortillas, rice or noodles? Had I asked "¿Sopa de pollo con tortillas, arroz o fideos?" her answer would've been different. But she was serving soup to crackers.

I first heard the term "international city" widely applied to Atlanta about the same time it sought to host the 1996 Summer Olympics... And to overcome the imagery of racial intolerance evoked by Lester Maddox' axe handle... Not an easy road, and a journey incomplete.

And in a lot of ways, Nevada is a lot like the deep South. A quick look at education funding or health care outcomes, the waistlines of perpetual heavy smokers snarfing down fast & fatty foods or a sampling of local talk radio replete with thinly veiled racism and overt xenophobia... All will confirm Las Vegas is really Mississippi with a desert, garish cartoon-like architecture and hookers galore.

A would be international city must outgrow its past prejudice and learn to embrace its emerging ethnic soup... Accept growing pains that may simmer, like a good soup, but can't be allowed to boil over.