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This morning I scrubbed a church urinal, and I felt shame welling up within me. My pride ached within my chest. Years of college study, teaching at the university, my national reputation as a composer meant nothing as I succumbed to the worst of Latino stereotypes - the Spanish Maid. A hundred small steps brought me to this place, shining the receptacle of a hundred men's waste. The American economy, high energy bills, one too many vacations this summer, a new baby, a car that is too new, a body that is too old, university budget cuts - all contributing factors. In the end, my husband and I decided that taking care of our child and paying for the necessities was more important than our respective egos.
I suppose my handsome gringo husband, his mother having to support four children on a janitor's salary alone, gave him a unique perspective on the cleaning job. He understood that children do not judge their parents the way that society, or even our own hearts do. But I had been raised that if you succeed, are the best, and overcome all through hard work and dedication, that you would want for nothing. Even when I chose the least lucrative field of all - the arts - I had foolish faith that as long as I gave my all, all would be already.
But then the economy failed, our old Toyota died, and I gave birth to our new baby girl.
I spoke with my mom on the phone yesterday about the new cleaning job, along with other happenings from the week - baby took her first steps, I was published in Yahoo!, and I am composing a film score for an art film in California. I admit my relationship with my mom is tenuous. Its been calm for many years now, but I am always afraid that it will revert to the shouting matches of twenty years ago. The child within in me, I suppose, fears for the worst. She reminded me of the time when she scrubbed toilets, a couple of years after she had served as V.P. of my dad's engineering company. There is nothing shameful in taking care of one's family, no matter what the job.
Jump back one more generation, and I think of Abuelo and Abuela, newly arrived from Cuba. My abuelo, a former medical student in cardiology became a pizza delivery boy, and eventually worked in construction. My abuela, a professional singer in her youth, then a kindergarten teacher (and official seamstress for the Cuban resistance against Castro), worked in a shrimp factory for twenty years. Each day she peeled shrimp in a factory in Miami, along with other new immigrants to America. Abuela had lost a young daughter in Cuba, and never again saw the child's grave once she stepped on American soil.
Sacrifice. Love. Pride.
These adjectives describe any Latino father working a day job so his children can eat for one more day, or the Hispanic mama slaving away in a restaurant kitchen or cleaning a bathroom just to provide a warm bed for her family. Mis hermanos y hermanas, your children do not care if you feed them working at a high paying job or as a janitor. All they care about is that you show them love. Ignore the idiots who try to pin the label "lazy" onto you, just because you speak the mother tongue to your children. The Latino people are hard working, American citizens or Americans citizen-to-be. It is only fear that attempts to keep us down. It is only fear that prevents us from succeeding. It is only shame that we put on ourselves which keeps us from holding our heads up high.
Next week I will again clean shine the urinals, once again scrub filth, and once again feel the pain welling up within my sinful heart, but this time I will crush the shame and replace it with pride - the same pride that mis abuelos felt as they stepped onto American soil for the first time, the same pride my mother felt as she cleaned the church bathroom decades ago to put food on the table, and the same pride that I feel as I hold my little bebe in my arms, knowing that she and her papa have done all that they can to give her a chance at a healthy and happy life.
