McDonald's Exposed: You Won't Eat Here Ever Again...

"Fast Food". Female house sparrow (Passer domesticus) on a city street prepares to feast on a... [+] discarded french fry. (Credit: hedera.baltica / CC BY-SA 2.0) hedera.baltica via a Creative Commons license

Sergio: What's one of the first memories you have of the US?Rodolfo: One of the very first memories I have of the US, was, I was in a truck with my mom—I'm not sure if this was before or after the fact, that we had already arrived because we arrived in Phoenix, Arizona—was somebody asking my mom, "Have you and your son ate?" I remember my mom telling him, "No, but I have a sandwich here and some snacks for him." He went, "No, here, you're in America now, you're in Phoenix now, let's go get a burger." I remember that somebody bought me—I don't know if it was her or him, the driver—a kid's meal from MacDonald's. This is when they had... I'm not sure…it was like the little hand-held games. I'm not sure, I think it was the Rug Rats or something like that. I remember getting that little toy and thinking, wow, it's a kid's... It had little fries and a burger, and you get a toy.Rodolfo: It was the first time I had ever saw that, and I got really happy, because I was playing the little game and all that. I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. After then, we went into a room... it couldn't have been more... It was just a standard living room, but there was probably like 50 or 60 people in there. Some of them were sitting and it smelled horrible. It obviously wasn't the best place. I guess it was just for people waiting for their relatives to go pick them up or something, I'm not sure. It was just my mother and I and I remember there was a lady with a big pot, and she was just cooking. I'm not sure what she was cooking but we went into another room and all I remember hearing was a big slam.Rodolfo: I looked back and it was a cage. It was literally like they fashioned a metal door with metal bars between the thresholds of the living room from end to end so nobody could get out. Then the windows were the same, they had burglar bars so nobody would get out. I was wondering, why is this happening? At that time, obviously, you were a kid, you don't understand what's going on. First I got fed, I have a little game, and now I'm in this steel cage that smells horrible. I remember somebody arguing with the other person that, "The bucket was full. The bucket was full." I was hearing that, "You need to empty out this bucket." I realized that was the bathroom, that's why it smelled so horrible.Rodolfo: I remember the guy just closing a curtain, and just telling me to, "Shut up." That's when I felt fear for the first time. Even though I was in the desert and everything, that's the very, very first time I felt genuine fear. I didn't know what was going on. I felt it because my mom felt it. She was just hugging me, and that was like the last thing I remember. After that I remember just waking up in the apartment complex. In a room, but it was completely different, it was somebody else. I guess these people knew my mother, because they spoke to her by name and everything. That was one of the very first memories.