Marmur, Jacland "The Girl Who Waited"

World War 2 tale. The young waitress of a San Francisco Mexican restaurant frequented by merchant mariners and sailors refuses to believe that her beau (the restaurant’s former chef) had died at sea during the invasion of Iwo Jima and waits, fruitlessly, for his return. Taking a page from a 1940s Hollywood movie, the missing man eventually turns up after the War has ended, but is suffering from amnesia. The restaurant’s big-hearted Hispanic-American owner, Dizzy Ramez, figures out how to snap the man back to reality, and in doing so sabotages his own romantic designs on the waitress. The rather trite story is chiefly of interest today for its rather sympathetic – and non-stereotypical – portrayal of a Hispanic-American. For another 1940s portrayal of a Hispanic-American see Edward Adolphe’s “Siesta on the High Sea” (listed above).