Tag: immigration

I was there

Photo by Cody Board on Unsplash

My one day off winds down as I stare at my computer for a bit. Y. has gone off to bed, exhausted as she is, and D. is chatting with her friends a little too loud. She will of course come out and pretend she’s not sleepy, and then go to bed. I feel tired, and I know the snoring little ball of (short) fur on the couch will need walking in some eight hours and I should get to bed. But this called me. So I answered.

As I sat and stared, I remember the weekend. Back in Caracas, my family got together. A big part of my family. They all gathered at an aunt’s house where less pleasant memories finally died. My parents, my brother, and my sister-in-law, my two beautiful nephews whom I am yet to hold; they just turned two this past Friday. My one-hundred-and-one-year-old great-uncle. My cousin flew in from Mexico with her husband and their triplets, who are now tweens; when I first saw them in that house they were very active toddlers. Another cousin and her husband are there with their two daughters. The oldest, who was the ring bearer in my first wedding, is now a beautiful seventeen-year-old, and I tremble for her father. And of course, I see my parents, delighted as they are to have so many of their loved ones with them.

And I’m there. We’re there.

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Five and counting

Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.

Jorge Luis Borges

We went shopping today, a rare day when all of us were off from our responsibilities and could spend it together. We went to the outlets near our home, and of course, I had to take a picture in front of the only restaurant that was there, now closed. Not going to lie, it was a strange moment, to see where this journey as an immigrant finally found a cushion now shut down. But it is Thanksgiving week, so I chose gratitude.

I look back at what I wrote about the experience, and I can’t help but smile at my innocence. Maybe I can even call it naiveté. It was clearly the work of someone who trusted people way more, that was clearly terrified of what he had done, upending his world like that. But then I see where I am now, and I can feel nothing but gratitude.

It’s been five years since we moved to Orlando, Y. from New York, me from Caracas. I can safely say it has been one hell of a ride, and we have come a long way since. I am about to embark on a new job adventure that I will tell you about when the time comes, I can actually start planning on buying my first car, and we have plans we could not have conceived of when we landed here. And we have a dog!

There have been weird moments, of course. Not two weeks ago, I was turning away from a table and a lady at it yelled at me “Server person!” twice. I turned to her, hiding how flabbergasted I was, and smiled and said “My name is Juan, ma’am”. Her response? “Oh, I’m never going to remember that”. There was the lady that insisted I replace the two –TWO– burnt shrimp in her bowl. There was the guy that handed me a fistful of quarters and said “Here’s your tip, friend, thank you”. There have also been hugs from kids, ladies that said their autistic daughter had the best birthday ever, families that give a little more because it was my birthday, and all the weird and wacky folks I have worked with.

Five years ago, I landed here not knowing what to expect beyond a LOT of work. I didn’t expect to start working at Universal Studios. I didn’t expect to meet cool musicians. I didn’t expect the best dog in the world. Along the way, I have managed to find my way out of some disasters, avoid others, and even mark up some wins. I have learned, maybe times forcibly, how to be a responsible adult with money, some twenty years too late. And it all started that day, in that restaurant. (Ok, a little earlier, but the actual start was at that restaurant.

On this day, I am so grateful for the opportunities I have had in this country. The little things I have done, the not-so-little things, what I’ve seen, who I’ve met, what I’ve done. Here’s to many more adventures, especially in this new chapter of my life, which I hope I may see those who honor me with their visits here, for many years to come.

Three

Photo by Bambi Corro on Unsplash

I woke up around seven that morning. I think I remember my flight was scheduled to leave around four, which meant I had to be at the airport around two o’clock. My dad picked me up at my aunt’s house, the place I called home for some five years after my divorce, and I kissed her goodbye. Her voice cracked as she hugged me, and I still feel a little guilt from leaving her; I never was super chatty with her, or spend any significant amount of time with her, this woman who was like a second mom to me. She seemed so frail… But I resisted.

It was the shortest breakfast ever. Then my dad, brother and sister in law came with me to the airport. And I hugged my mom, as her voice started cracking. I did not want to cry, not yet, but I have always been a mama’s boy. I felt a little lump as she blessed me, but I smiled and kissed her in the forehead.

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A change is gonna come. Soon. For real

I get to a stoplight driving D. to a karate friend’s birthday party at a Chuck E. Cheese’s, and see the Facebook notification I’ve expected to receive every Saturday: the weekly schedule for the restaurant’s shifts, posted on the private group. I didn’t look at it right away, of course, being in a moving car at all, but also, I had the proverbial bad feeling. I decided to wait till I got home.

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“We come from the same place”

My next-to-last table for the day was a big one: nine people. Two men, three women, and four ladies between twelve and I’m guessing twenty. As I approached I heard them talking not in English. My first reaction was to assume they were of the same nationality as I’d say roughly seventy per cent of my customers. Not to mention, they were of no ethnicity I could assume.

–Welcome! Brazil?

One of the men, a burly specimen in his mid-fifties but with a kind smile, flashed said smile and said in broken Spanish:

–No, Brazil no. Egipcios.

–Oh!–, I said, a little taken aback but not losing own my smile–. Then we continue in English.

They were a lively although demanding group. The girls were very easy to laugh, and the youngest one was what you could call an old soul. Near the end of the meal one of the ladies called me over.

–Are you Indian by any chance?

–No, ma’am. Venezuelan–. I smiled again, and assumed a Punjabi accent–. Though I am greatly respectful of the wonderful people of India.

I got the expected laugh out of the table, but then one of the ladies grew a bit serious.

–How long have you been here, sir?

–Since November, ma’am.

–Things are not good back home, yes?

–Not quite ma’am. I guess back yours they are better, right?

–No, no–. She pointed to the burly man. –He’s Egyptian, he’s my brother in law. We’re Syrian.

My heart sank, as you can imagine. –I am so sorry, ma’am, for everything that is happening in your country. Where are you living now?

–We’re in Canada. They live in New York.

 

I looked over at the girls again, this time with new eyes. Do either of them remember their country? What had they seen? What have they told them?

–You have all my sympathies. My country is also causing an immigration problem in the region.

–Why is that?

First, a reminder. Syria has been in the midst of airst civil war since March, 2011, briefly after the events of the Arab Spring toppled regimes in Tunisia and yes, Egypt. Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad refused to back down or even make decent reforms, so a full-on war exploded. This was also the beginning of the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS, but it also caused one of the worst refugee crisis in history. More than five million Syrians have fled their country, mostly toward Europe, by land and by sea. Many have drowned, and many others are caught in diplomatic limbo in refugee camps all over, especially in Greece, where they are not exactly welcome with open arms.

With that in mind, I explain to the lady that Venezuela itself is starting to cause an immigration crisis. Estimates of how many of us have left the country vary a bit, but most say that the number is between two and three million, mostly middle-class.But as the Council on Foreign Affairs of the United Nations noted recently, it’s starting to get worse. Colombia, which is right next door, has seen some 250,000 Venezuelans come in between August 2017 and March 2018, with some estimates of as many as 3,000 coming in a day. And the rest of Latin America is not far behind: according to The Washington Post, Chile has seen a 1,388% increase of Venezuelan immigrants since 2015; Panama, who saw an overwhelming influx of my countrypeople between 2010 and 2016, imposed new visa requirements that make it that much harder to come in the coun try; and, well, there’s this guy, who doesn’t exactly make it easy.

After I explain this, the woman looks at me with a sad smile. “So we come from the same place”, she sighs.

They were obviously a well-to-do family, perhaps even educated. They all spoke very good English, if with an accent. They still had family in the capital (Damascus), but they had survived the worst part. I was amazed to agree with her, because although my country is not at war, I too left a life that would not have let me reach my full potential. It doesn’t help that Assad and the late Hugo Chavez were quite chummy.

After they left, I moved up to Ian, one of my fellow servers, and sighed.

–That family that’s leaving is Syrian, man. I can’t even imagine.

–Oh for real?– he asked.

–They live in New York and Toronto now. Talk about a change.

–I’ve always wondered, how people just leave their countries, start trying to find a job and what not.

–Well, look at me. I was a reporter back home, now I’m a waiter.

And so many people like that. Omar, one of our bussers, is an oil engineer. My GF is a graphic designer who used to run her own cake-designing businesses and now is a hostess. And how many doctors, lawyers, dentists, economists and the such are working as cabbies, salespeople, construction workers. Not all of us truly wanted to leave the country that saw us grow, but many had no choice. Which makes what Venezuelan turd-in-command, Nicolas Maduro, said this week — “I wouldn’t go to clean toilets in Miami”– particularly irritating. And of course many answered back.

It’s a sad fact of life that to better support your family, or at least help them, the best thing many of us could do was leave, doing things we’ve never thought we’d do. And any job dignifies, no matter if it is cleaning toilets. All we want is the chance to get ahead in life, be wherever we may be. And that applies to all immigrants or refugees, be they Syrian or Venezuelan.

As I picked up their table, two of the girls lingered behind. I asked their mother permission to say one last thing. They told me they were twelkve and fifteen.

–No matter where you are, girls, always remember and care for your country. Because your country made you who you are. Learn everything about it, as much as you can, because it’s going to be up to you to fix the mess that your elders have left behind. We’re counting on you.

They listened carefully, and smiled what I operceived as honest, interested smiles. I wonder what would come later, how they would grow up. Only time can tell, of course. Meanwhile, here we are, and here we go on.

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Welcome to the salt of the earth

Working-Hands

Magic Kingdom, guest parking space. Next right.

The last time I saw that sign, it drew a feeling of elation from me, even as a supposedly mature thirtysomething. It meant fun, laughter, an escape from reality.

That was then. Today when I saw it, it meant entering a new reality.

We got to the service entrance in the middle of a fog worthy of Victorian age London and cold unworthy of Florida. I was wearing a hard hat and security vest and goggles for the first time in my forty-six years of life. The “sissy” hands many people pointed out with varying degrees of bad intentions would start a perhaps short trip into callousness. To say it was humbling was to say the least.

This is what happens when you move to a new country, even though in my case it remained my country. You start from scratch unless you’re incredibly lucky and manage to find work in your own field. But most of the time, you’re a blank face, a clean slate, but you still need to make a living. So you take what you can.

I tell this to Larry, my new coworker. He’s a tall, lanky kid, with a goatee and short, thick mane, the typical gringo catire ojos azules we Venezuelans usually make fun of. He looks like a surfer dude. Turns out I’m close: he’s a skater dude. Loves the Florida weather because of that. Been working for the Dutchman that owns the company that makes the greenhouses for six months. And as you might expect, he’s laid back and pretty darn friendly.

–How did you get here?– he asks. He’s 22, from Michigan. Or is it Minnesota? I only now remember that many Americans confuse “Venezuela” with “Minnesota”. Or so Joanna Hausmann says.

–He hooked me up–, I say, pointing at my GF’s friend’s husband, where we’re staying.

–That’s so weird… Do you plan on quitting journalism for good, doing this full time?

I look down at the wire I’ve been setting up for the past hour and contemplate the pain on my knees. –Oh hell no–, I answer with a smile. He chuckles back.

One thing I have been trying to do since I got here is keep talking to strangers, just to keep my interviewing skills sharp. Got Austin Kleon to thank for that little piece of advice. So I start talking to Larry while we pull the tarp over a few topiary figures in progress. Kermit the Frog listens intently.

He’s the oldest of four children, with a brother and two sisters, who both gave him five nephews. The company he –well, now, we– work for sends them all over the States to set up the greenhouses. He travels with his girlfriend of four years, although they’ve known each other their whole life; her mother is Larry’s mother’s best friend.

–We used to drink together growing up while our moms sat and drank as well– he tells me.

He’s the one in the family who earns the most, something he’s both proud and mortified of. –My dad had his own construction company for over ten years, till it went down. Now he works in fucking Taco Bell. Can you believe that? He’s 54, 480 pounds and working in Taco Bell. I earn so much more than he does. Unbelievable.

I involuntarily do the math –454 grams to a pound, so that means dad weights 217 kilograms. In a stressful job, as does mom, who works in a factory, I think. They both drink, so I wonder how long till Larry gets another scare.

–I just smoke weed, helps with my PTSD.

–Oh did you serve?– I ask before knowing how stupid the question was; he’s just 22, he doesn’t need to serve in the Army. Case in point:

–No, (a family member) died in my arms. Downed a whole bottle of (liquor whose name I didn’t hear nor ask to repeat) and I walked in to find him all blue. He had a smile on his face. That shit messed me up. So I smoke a joint right before bed, so I don’t dream. Those nightmares fuck me up.

His girl travels with him and has a pretty easy life, in comparison. –She went to nursing school, and worked at Target, but I make more money. So she just comes along where we go. Stays at the paid hotel, gives me my back rub when I get there. It’s cool.

At break time, I look at this odd little crew. Two Venezuelans and a Minnesota boy under a Honduran boss. In this little group, Larry’s the minority, but it’s just on this table. He’s got it easier. Darwin, our supervisor, has been here three years, and he’s trying to get his own company going. He sorta speaks English but with a heavy accent. Joel has also been here three years, with his wife and her four-year-old son, and they’ve both managed to find a house and two cars, working their proverbial asses off. And then there’s me, brand new, with less than two hundred bucks to my name. It pains me how much I still depend on what my GF has saved to make a start, so I am doing the opposite of complaining.

In the meantime, I’m glad I get to meet people like Larry, who make life a little more interesting. All I have to do is ask.