Immigration Thoughts
WE’RE LIVING IN HOPE
Everytime I hear it, the comment about work that Americans won’t do, I’m reminded of how the debate over illegal immigration is indeed about the soul of America. My mother was a maid, my upbringing fitting from an economic standpoint, the stereotype of the black woman scrubbing white women’s floors. Black women as domestic workers were still common when I entered the work world as a lawyer over thirty-years ago. Affection, pride, guilt, these were my feelings in the evenings working late at my desk, rolling aside in my executive –style chair, making room so Miss Lyons or Miss Rebecca could get around my desk for the waste- basket. The face of my mother’s sacrifice, her hopes fulfilled beyond her generation’s wildest expectations for their children. In the later years of her life, she’d say “we hoped when we didn’t see any hope.”
Nowadays I use my law degree on a part-time basis teaching undergraduates, and I’ve learned it’s nothing to be offended at when the cleaning people many times seem to ignore me when I offer them the same greetings I once offered Miss Lyons and Miss Rebecca, --- comradeship of my mother’s hoping. Things became clear one night when a young girl I’d seen many times, went out of her way to smile at me, and with determined gesturing of her hands, she let me know that she didn’t speak English.
Work didn’t take on a new language, it’s still the grammar of hope.
Vashti Varnado
4/7/06
Everytime I hear it, the comment about work that Americans won’t do, I’m reminded of how the debate over illegal immigration is indeed about the soul of America. My mother was a maid, my upbringing fitting from an economic standpoint, the stereotype of the black woman scrubbing white women’s floors. Black women as domestic workers were still common when I entered the work world as a lawyer over thirty-years ago. Affection, pride, guilt, these were my feelings in the evenings working late at my desk, rolling aside in my executive –style chair, making room so Miss Lyons or Miss Rebecca could get around my desk for the waste- basket. The face of my mother’s sacrifice, her hopes fulfilled beyond her generation’s wildest expectations for their children. In the later years of her life, she’d say “we hoped when we didn’t see any hope.”
Nowadays I use my law degree on a part-time basis teaching undergraduates, and I’ve learned it’s nothing to be offended at when the cleaning people many times seem to ignore me when I offer them the same greetings I once offered Miss Lyons and Miss Rebecca, --- comradeship of my mother’s hoping. Things became clear one night when a young girl I’d seen many times, went out of her way to smile at me, and with determined gesturing of her hands, she let me know that she didn’t speak English.
Work didn’t take on a new language, it’s still the grammar of hope.
Vashti Varnado
4/7/06
posted by Vashti Varnado at 4:49 PM
1 Comments:
I agree 100%. I am sick and tired of people talking about work Americans won't do. Sure some of us may not be as industrious as others, but if there were no illegals (hey if there were no H-1-b [I think] visas} we would have Americans doing those jobs without a question.
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