We were preparing to have our master bath redone and I was clearing out a pathway to the bathroom before the workers arrived. My living room was filled with mementos from my family who had been a great part of my growing up. There was the bookcase from the 1930s when my grandfather had been stationed in Haiti made of the local mahogany, the bowl celebrating the 100th anniversary of the University of California where much of my family had attended, the plates on the wall from a time in France, and hidden away in a drawer the 100-year-old silver flat wear that had belonged to another grandmother. I had had the physical presence of these people in my life growing up, and now I had pieces of their life scattered about my home.
I looked at the Hispanic crew that had come into my home to redo my bath and through conversations found they were all first-generation Americans. They spoke Spanish among themselves and English when talking to me. One of them even had a third language from his native Mexican-Indian village. My high school French. German, and Latin were of no use.
This crew of new Americans did a wonderful job on the bathroom, always coming when planned, talking to me about any decisions, and making useful suggestions along the way. I thought, as I watched them work so efficientl,y that they had been forced to leave everything behind when they came to this country. No mementos of family history in their houses, in fact no family at all that had not come with them. If they hung on to their language, culture and food I could understand as that was what was left to them of their past.
I asked each one of them over the weeks the bathroom progressed, if they felt safe in today’s climate. All claimed that they were, but all commented that it was a hard time for immigrants. I looked at the beautiful bathroom they had created through their hard work and knowledge, and all I could think was that they were a welcome addition to the United States of today. Hopefully, the pictures of masked ICE agents pulling people off the streets and sending them to Louisianna (Louisiana?) will reverberate with those of us of another color and background and that we will learn to welcome those who teach in our universities, study at our educational institutions, anchor our news shows not to mention pick our crops, clean our hotel rooms, roof our houses… and beautifully finish a bathroom. I welcome them all.