Lupe

Staring at the floor avoiding direct eye contact with you, I do not want to attract attention to myself and displease you. I am afraid you will notice and be offended by my presence and i am
hoping you do not talk to me, you see i am embarrassed that my English is not that good.

When we encounter each other on a grocery line i see you staring at me impatiently,murmuring, fidgeting as i struggle to understand the cashiers request and I count my change to pay for the groceries that will feed my family for the week

Every day I go to work and hop on that bus at six am, I think of my kids and hope they have a good morning getting to school. I arrive at work and for a few minutes I look out and see the sun rising over the ocean and I thank God for the beauty i witness everyday. I walk into work and i smile at the security guard and proceed to meet the ladies who will for next eight hours help me clean hotel rooms.

As I arrange my cleaning cart with all the supplies, I think to myself how I never want my kids to experience this back breaking labor. I encounter guest all day long and i smile at them as i push my cart to the next room hoping not to find a bathroom with feces on the walls, used condoms on the floor or vomit all over the bed. 

My job is to clean and clean i do, no matter how disgusting the room is when i am finished with it you be hard press to find a cleaner hotel room.

The bus ride home is filled with a sea of brown faces, tired faces, nodding off faces. And I too nap until my stop. Once home I catch a second wind and cook dinner and clean my apartment. I help my kids with their homework mostly math cause the rest is in English and i do not understand it all that well.

They tell me about their day and i laugh at their funny stories, they tell about how some kids make fun of them cause they can not speak English all that good and i tell them to ignore them and to pay attention to their teacher.

Eleven at night and i go to bed to be up at five am to catch the six o’clock bus. I am an immigrant and I know my place in this country. I do not want to attract attention, I do not want my children to labor like me. My name is Lupe and I love this country like my own. I am in heaven now, resting waiting for the rest of my family.

Last night I heard my son weeping because the President was calling Mexican immigrants criminals and wants to build a wall to keep brown immigrants from crossing to America illegally. My son told me about the hearts of  broken mothers and fathers who were missing their children because they got kidnapped at the border by the government. I heard my sons cry and wept because I know this is not the America I loved.