New York restaurant’s silent protest against the U.S. travel ban

“Immigrants make America great (they also cooked your food and served you today).”

With this simple statement the chef of the restaurant Kiwiana, spread his personal message about immigration and tolerance, printed on the guests’ restaurant bills.

Mark Simmons, the chef of the restaurant, which serves New Zealand delicacies, is an immigrant from New Zealand himself. This is one of the reasons why he wants to emphasize the importance of openness and diversity and also wants to remind all Americans of the long tradition that immigration has in America. By sharing his statement with his costumers, he hopes to raise awareness of how important immigrants are for the USA.

When a reporter from NBC went to Kiwiana for brunch and discovered the sentence on her receipt, she tweeted a picture of it. About 48 hours later the photo was a hit on Twitter.

Breakfast in Brooklyn pic.twitter.com/JHEtfJhqPO

— Mary Emily O'Hara (@MaryEmilyOHara) 5. Februar 2017

And Kiwiana is not the only restaurant which supports the right of immigrants to enter the country: Previously, several places in New York protested against the executive order, stating their support for those affected by the ban. In different restaurant windows New Yorkers could see signs with “Refugees Welcome”, or similar statements, written on it.

Also, just recently the food company Breaking Bread opened an initiative for which they established a listing of restaurants that represent the cuisines of different countries affected by the order. For a small donation, which is given to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, they provide this list to guests of Breaking Bread NYC.

The protests started after President Donald Trump signed an executive order which banned the entry of immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries into the United States. After his decision was overturned by a federal judge from Seattle last Friday, now there is a legal battle over the legitimacy of the decree going on.