I was born in the city of Puebla, in Mexico, the first of a teenaged couple from different social classes of our metropolitan city.
MY FATHER
My father was the second-youngest of 7 children, born in the late 1960s in Puebla. His mother, my paternal grandmother, was abandoned by her parents and siblings after her first teen pregnancy out-of-wedlock. His father, my paternal grandfather, fell victim to alcohol addiction. My paternal grandmother, Eva, worked incessantly, doing whatever work was available to avoid having her children sleep on the street. Her work ethic inspired my father, who at about 9 years old, abandoned school to work with her, recalling many hours of his childhood carrying heavy buckets of water up several flights of stairs to the areas where she handwashed laundry. My father’s childhood was marked by persistent hunger, his father’s alcoholic and violent episodes, and torn, worn-out clothing and shoes.
MY MOTHER
My mother was the eldest daughter, the second of 5 children, also born in the late 1960s in Puebla. She was born to an illiterate mother from the countryside who was very entrepreneurial, and to a father who had been employed in a variety of jobs since his early teens. Between my maternal grandfather’s wages, as a baker, a driver, an employee at a Volkswagen plant, and more, and my maternal grandmother’s profits from a couple of businesses she owned and ran, my mother and her siblings were comfortable: they did not endure scarcities and uncertainty like my father’s family, but they were by no means rich, either. This enabled my mother and her siblings to graduate from high school.
THEIR HAPHAZARD UNION, AND HOW IT LEAD TO OUR MIGRATION STORY
Since both of my parents’ families lived in the same neighborhood, no more than a couple city blocks away, they were well acquainted with each other, and at times, friendly with one another. Both families were shocked to learn of my mother’s pregnancy, and my father’s paternity: I was not the product of a planned pregnancy, and I became the impetus towards their marriage. The elders were mostly concerned about how the poor, young man, without so much as a primary education or experience in jobs that paid well, was going to support his wife and his daughter? The solution was for that young man, my father, to come to the United States to earn money in dollars. My father was reluctant, he did not want to leave his mother behind, but she convinced him it was duty to provide for his children, like she had provided for him. He knew of no other option. At 21 years old, my father crossed the border without permission, his journey facilitated by a smuggler referred by my maternal grandparents. About a year later, my maternal grandparents arranged for my mother to come with me the same way. And we have been here since.
My father regularly engaged me in conversation throughout his life: he shared memories, told many stories, and offered proverbs. He got me to understand, since I was about 3 years old, that just like everyone in the home, I had a job, a duty, a responsibility. Whereas it was their job to provide shelter, food, clothing, and other living necessities, through his work in food service and through my mother’s domestic work cleaning houses- no, mansions- in Princeton, it was my job was to study, to learn. “When you’re older, mija*, I don’t want you to work with your hands, but to work with your mind.”
It frustrates me how one of the most common questions in initial conversations is, “what do you do,” “what is your occupation,” as if what we do in exchange for money is the most valuable aspect of our existence. The fact that I am an attorney does not mean I contribute more, that I am more valuable than the women in my family that clean the homes of others, or that I am more valuable than the energy my father expended towards the privilege of eating meals prepared and served by others. This frustration exacerbated to an angst following my father’s death from COVID-19 in late 2020, an illness he caught at the restaurant he had worked prior to the pandemic, a risk he was implicitly coerced into accepting, as an undocumented worker without access to any “safety nets” and after about six months of unemployment.
Like my father, loving my family is what I consider the most valuable labor of my life. The work I do for money may change, but the love for my family will not, under any circumstances.
(* “Mija” is a term of endearment in Spanish derived from “my daughter.”)
