In Color, the Waitresses in a Restaurant for Lonely Men

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A mural outside a Mexican restaurant reminded Ruth Prieto Arenas of her homeland. The colorful landscape, in stark contrast to the strip of plain brick tenements in Manhattan, stopped her.

“It was a mural of volcanoes, which in Aztec mythology has one representing a man and the other a woman,” she said. “It was a love story.”

But once inside, she learned a very different, and all too common, story â€" of loneliness, longing and adjusting to a new home. The customers were almost all men, exhausted from long days as construction hands, deliverymen or cooks. The waitresses, who had only recently arrived in the United States, offered their company â€" and nothing more â€" for twice the normal price of a beer.

Ruth Prieto Arenas Tables at the restaurant become spaces of shared stories, memories and hopes.

Ms. Prieto Arenas had known places like this back in Mexico City, where she was raised. She could relate to the challenges of seeking opportunities in a new country, since she had come to New York to study photography. Feeling a kinship of sorts, she decided to do a series that would look at these women both in the restaurant and at home. In time, she would also look at an older immigrant who had never been a waitress, but had worked hard to achieve a modest measure of success.

“What happens once you cross the border?” Ms. Prieto Arenas, 29, asked. “These women are courageous. With the social situation in Mexico, the poverty, these women decided to cross, saying, ‘If I die, I die.’ When they have nothing more to lose, they get the strength to cross. And once they’re here, they have to have great force of will to take care of everything.”

What started as a curious glance at a storefront mural turned into “Safe Heaven” â€" an intimate look at women, many of them mothers, who are too often seen as faceless, interchangeable workers. At a time when immigration continues to stir up intense passions, some of Ms. Prieto Arenas’s photographs are featured in a display accompanying “La Ruta,” a play by the Magnum Foundation and the Working Theater that explores similar issues. “La Ruta” runs through May 12 at Snug Harbor on Staten Island.

Mary Ellen Mark, who met Ms. Prieto Arenas at a workshop and encouraged her as she worked on the project, praised the young photographer’s work for its intimacy and honesty. “She caught their loneliness and isolation, but also their inventiveness and strength,” Ms. Mark said. “These women come here to work and are adding something to our culture.”

Ms. Prieto Arenas’s subjects are all distinct people: they come from different places in Mexico, live in different parts of New York and have different quirks and tastes. To organize her theme, she chose a color for each person â€" red, green, yellow, blue and purple â€" based on the walls of their rented rooms or their personal favorites.

It took two months of negotiating with the restaurant owner for her to get access and start the project.

“He didn’t want me to bother the customers,” she said. “There was also the issue that there are various social problems â€" not just their immigration status, but it’s also a place where men with families or who are married go for a beer. The owner wanted to preserve the place’s privacy.”

Ruth Prieto Arenas Delia, or “Blue,” at the restaurant.

But Ms. Prieto Arenas persisted, and the owner relented.

The women go from table to table, she said, offering their company for a beer â€" $10 a bottle. They listen, make small talk about music or sports, laugh and drink. Sometimes the conversations get serious as the night goes on, as men talk about how they miss their families back in Mexico, how they wish they could find someone in New York.

When the beer is finished, the waitress gets up and goes to another table.

“The men pay for beer and conversation,” Ms. Prieto Arenas said. “It was not about sex. There may be other places where these things happen, but this place was calm.”

Ruth Prieto Arenas Sabel, or “Green,” in the nail salon where she works.

After her fourth night shooting, the owner called it off. Ms. Prieto Arenas had always known that was a possibility, and besides, the restaurant scenes were only the first chapter of what would become a multipart series. She had befriended several waitresses, and they allowed her to photograph them inside their homes. (Home is not exactly the right word, since they all rented a room inside an apartment that they shared with other immigrants.) Most had children. A few had boyfriends.

“For me, it was important to talk about what happens after what you see in public,” she said. “Their home was important because their family is there. That is where they develop their personalities and live their lives. I wanted to show how they transmitted their culture, since that is part of the woman’s role. They impart this to their children in the home through food, language and even discipline.”

The time Ms. Prieto Arenas spent explaining her project, along with her background and her own goals as an immigrant, earned her not just access but trust. Her subjects shared with her their own goals, which went beyond the restaurant.

“Delia, she’s single and has no children,” Ms. Prieto Arenas said. “The problem is that although she is working, it’s wearing her down. She’d like to go to college and study, but it’s hard because she is working all the time.”

Not all of the waitresses have stayed at the restaurant. One is now a cleaning woman (Slides 15 through 20), working more regular hours. But they all told Ms. Prieto Arenas that they saw no shame in their waitressing jobs.

“They see it like any other job,” she said. “It is not shameful. They do not have to do anything they do not want to do. They draw the line themselves.”

The final chapter of her series came from a discussion with Ms. Mark, who introduced Ms. Prieto Arenas to Sabel (above), a woman she knew from a local nail salon who had lived in the United States for 15 years and was raising two children.

Sabel â€" or “Green,” as Ms. Prieto Arenas called her â€" has already gone through the rough times and now enjoys a more stable life with her husband, although they have yet to get an apartment of their own. She speaks English and volunteers at her children’s school, and now also works at a laundry.

“There is nostalgia for the old country, but also pride about what they have achieved here,” Ms. Prieto Arenas said. “These women, they are raising tomorrow’s generation. The women are immigrants, but what is happening to their children? They are going to school and making their parents proud. There is hope, and that is the reality.”

Ruth Prieto Arenas Maribel, Purple.

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