Alba Galdamez knows her way around the kitchen. She is the chef at Immigrant Food’s location near the White House and an immigrant from El Salvador. She moved to the U.S. about 20 years ago and has worked many jobs. But cooking won her heart.

“Out of all the jobs I’ve had, the one that fascinated me the most was cooking,” Galdamez said.

Galdamez says that through its menu, Immigrant Food highlights the tapestry of immigrant cultures that make up the United States. Each dish tells a story. And whether Galdamez is cooking flavors from Venezuela or India, she wants everyone to feel welcome.

“When you come here, you’re basically coming home,” she said. “This restaurant is the fusion of all countries in the world.”

At its three Washington locations, the first of which opened in 2019, Immigrant Food advocates for immigrant-related issues, including comprehensive immigration reform.

Immigration is one of the top issues in this U.S. presidential election, according to a Gallup poll released in April.

Republicans are more likely than Democrats and independents to consider immigration the most important issue. In the latest poll, 48% of Republicans, 8% of Democrats, and 25% of independents say immigration is the most important problem facing the country. This is a decrease for Republicans from 57% in February.

A place that feels like home is what Immigrant Food founders Téa Ivanovic and Peter Schechter had in mind while advocating for mostly immigrant-related issues. The restaurant often partners with local nonprofits to provide access to resources such as free legal representation for immigrants.

They also host voter registration drives for new citizens and participate in local community events. They call it “gastroadvocacy.”

“I just thought it was an incredible, such an innovative way to include a social mission into a business model in ways that we had not seen done before,” Ivanovic said.

Ivanovic moved to the U.S. from Belgium as an international student. She played tennis for Virginia Tech and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in international studies. She also worked as a Washington correspondent for Oslobodjenje, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s oldest newspaper in the Western Balkans.

“I wasn’t in the restaurant industry at all. I was a journalist. I worked at a think tank. I worked in financial public relations. And when I met my co-founder, Peter, we started talking about this idea of having a restaurant that has a mission,” she said.

And with a significant number of migrants from around the world coming to seek asylum in the United States, Schechter says the story of immigrants today is not so different from when his family moved to the U.S.

Schechter was born in Rome, Italy. His parents are from Austria and Germany.

“Then I moved to Latin America for about almost 10 years, first to La Paz, Bolivia, and then to Caracas, Venezuela. … I came here to do my last few years of high school. In my family we spoke German, Italian and English mixed up,” Schechter said.

Schechter says it should be easy to combine border security and legal immigration while having a humanitarian vision.

“And we need to come to find a way to renew and modernize our immigration laws, so that we can have the security that America needs as a country. Every country needs security and borders and people to control them, but at the same time, we need to have a humanitarian, efficient immigration law,” he noted.

For Katrin Garcia, Immigrant Food’s assistant general manager at the White House location, the restaurant’s partnerships with local nonprofits gave her access to information that is helping her through the U.S. immigration process. Garcia is originally from Venezuela.

“I came to the U.S. three years ago,” she said.

Between coordinating deliveries, welcoming customers, and taking reservations over the phone, Garcia told VOA that despite her degree in marketing she was making $20 a month in Venezuela. It wasn’t enough to live on.

“So, I take my visa, I take my passport, and I come in here,” Garcia said.

Within six months of her arrival in the U.S., she got a job at Immigrant Food. She considers herself fortunate when she thinks about those who cross the Darién Gap, a treacherous stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama, on their perilous journey to the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I’m lucky. I have a good story,” Garcia added.

For now, Garcia is focusing on getting through her immigration process and other “big dreams.”

“Lawyers for asylum are very expensive. So, I need to work hard. … My big dream is working in events. That’s what I want,” she said.

Galdamez, Garcia, Schechter and Ivanovic are all immigrants with different stories, but they say that together at Immigrant Food, they’re creating a new life for themselves, their families, and those around them.

“I mean, it’s fundamentally about coming to seek a better life, coming to seek a better education for your children, greater opportunities, and sometimes it’s also about escaping prosecution and harassment, persecution in their home countries,” Schechter said.

Over the course of the past few weeks, I have been a part of many incredible, unbelievable, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. These events are so fresh in my mind that I haven’t even been able to fully process them, let alone see or understand their long-term impact. Already, I think if given the chance, I could talk about the events of those days for an entire lifetime: the experiences, the people, the feelings and emotions around them, the life lessons, I could actually go on forever. Since that is impractical and too much for anyone to listen to, I want to focus on a single part of the culminating event, the first-ever State Dinner honoring teachers at the White House. You read that correctly: the state teachers of the year were invited to dine with the First Lady of the United States, and fellow educator herself, Dr. Jill Biden (as I said in the opening statement… unbelievable).

But the story begins long before the dinner itself on May 2. We have to go back to the welcome address a week prior, delivered by 2019 National Teacher of the Year Rodney Robinson, where he planted a seed of thought into my mind that I wasn’t expecting nor fully able to comprehend in that moment. Among his many words of wisdom, he said, “YOU (the state teachers of the year) are not the reason you are here.” Certainly a strange statement to make to a group of extraordinary professional educators. Nevertheless, he went on to explain that even though we are exactly where we are supposed to be, our journey here wasn’t entirely of our own making. This thought stayed in the front of my mind throughout every experience of the following week.

The truth Rodney helped me to confront is that I would not be where I am today were it not for a host of people along my journey. My family and friends, whose love and unconditional support has sustained me when things have been tough. My own teachers, whose dedication and belief in me during one of the most challenging times of my life allowed me to believe in myself. My colleagues, who have pushed and challenged me to keep moving forward. But most importantly, my students, who for over a decade have given me purpose, strength, and inspiration in more ways than can be named. Each of them helped me along in one way or another.

The next day brought about the chance to hear from yet another world class educator, 2010 National Teacher of the Year and coordinator for the state teachers of the year, Sarah Brown Wessling. More than any other person I’ve met, Sarah has the ability to know what you need before you know yourself, and as someone who has gone through these same experiences, she told a story of her meeting the president when she was named National Teacher of the Year in 2010. It was the exact story we needed. Without retelling someone else’s story, the moral was that we should be aware of who it is we are carrying into the spaces we occupy, from the ordinary to the incomprehensible, they are with us. Again, the words stuck. They meant something despite my lack of context to understand their meaning.

Fast forward to Thursday evening, when we were on our way to the White House to attend the historic State Dinner. From the outside, we looked ready. Each of us dressed in our finest clothes, adorned with little personal touches that showcased our profession, our state, and our personalities. We looked invincible. But inside, my mind was racing, and as it did, the words of wisdom from earlier in the week appeared again, only this time, they didn’t rattle in my mind, they came out.

Sitting across the aisle from me was 2024 Delaware Teacher of the Year Cory Hafer, which in hindsight was the perfect person. So I asked, “Cory, who are you carrying with you?” In the most truthful and vulnerable way, we both went on to name students, family members, and other folks that we were thinking about in the moment. This last conversation started to bring to focus the thoughts that were dominating my mind all week long. Then in an instant, we went from sitting at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue waiting to depart the bus to the entrance of the East Room of the White House. There are a million memories between the two, but again, this story has one focus.

Once I entered that incredible dining room, I felt myself losing control. My heart fluttered, my mind raced, and I thought of all of the reasons why I shouldn’t be in that room; why I didn’t belong; why I wasn’t deserving of such an honor. Quickly, I looked into my hand at my seating card, I saw the number “15” and took a beeline to find my seat. Once I noticed the table, I saw a golden apple with the words “Kevin Dailey” sitting on the table, but I certainly did not feel like that was my place. Every negative thought, every doubt, every flaw, every failure flashed right in front of my eyes.

I pulled out the chair to take my seat and saw a glimpse of a book. I had never seen this book before, but I instantly knew what it was. It was Rodney’s words, “you are not the reason why you are here.” It was Sarah’s story, “who are you carrying with you?” As I lifted the book, it all made sense. All of the worries, the doubts, the failures that had dominated my senses parted and in their place were handwritten notes from my students. I took a deep breath and knew that no matter what I felt about my own presence in those hallowed halls, the people I carried with me, the people that brought me to that moment, they all deserved to be there. They belonged in that room. And it was my responsibility, my honor, to bring them with me. Those little notes of kindness gave me power, confidence, and a sense of belonging and purpose that I will never forget.

It’s pretty amazing, the power of kindness. What a nice note, a simple gesture, or a short reminder can do for a person. In my career as a teacher, I have saved every note, every email, every Post-it given by my students. I store them in a binder behind my desk. These notes mean the world to me. But this book of kindness is a constant reminder of the reason I am where I am today and of those that I carry with me. And that is a lesson I hope I never forget.