Manhood
Story by Anonymous // Art by Marco Reyes

My parents weren't too happy about me leaving my job. I quit being a cashier at the art store because the corporate people were coming down on me because my social security number didn't match up.  

"I can't believe you quit!" my mother says to me, raising her hands in disapproval. “You know when your dad was your age..." and this is where she begins – where I always come short of his triumph as a construction worker.  It's one of the most honorable jobs I can think of.  If they let me, I would go in with them.

"I came to this country licking the floors like a dog," my father always says to me.  A man I had never met until I was 17. I feel bad for him, being that he had to learn to survive at a very young age selling gum, becoming a soldier and drifting from job to job for the needs of his family.  "That's how you become a man," the women that have surrounded me throughout my life have told me.  I listen to them from the kitchen table while they cook dinner and talk about my father. They give me advice only to compare me to other men in the family.  

They're disappointed that I quit my second job as a cashier. Manhood, or “becoming a man” is something that has always been stressed to me while growing up.  The problem is, my family and I have different ideas on what it takes to be a man.  They think toiling in these jobs, under the radar of immigration services, will make me a man.  I think it may stop me from really being one who can provide for my family.

Remember, mom, that I told you I wanted a career, not just a job? Working at the assembly line or McDonald's is not going to get me a career.  Remember I was 15 when I got my fake social security and alien resident card? All so I could wake up at 5:00am to catch the bus and get to work on time. I told you that it sucked because those people were slaves and got taken advantage of. But you said, "Suck it up, that's how you become a man." Yes, now I'm back on this computer parts assembly line four years later. Standing here waiting for the hours to go by, folding boxes, rushing to put on the labels. Box after box. "Hurry the line up, quit being so lazy!" the lead says to us, knowing that the line is going as fast as it can. For $50 everyday they expect us to kill ourselves.  "Tomorrow the hours will change and we need all of you to be on time!" The lead raises her voice and creates an echo for everyone to hear.  

Yes, we will be here tomorrow in the clutter of all these palettes. The radio will numb our coldness and the day will rise and fall without us seeing it.  Maybe we will always have a job here.  The immigrant men still speak of their hometowns and how the work is so easy, and their ambitions to buy a truck and save something to provide. The young women are efficient workers, and on their breaks, share their food and make everyone laugh with their exaggerated soap opera stories.  This old lady standing in line asks me my age and tells me proudly about how long she's been here. With her curled hair raised above her glasses, she reminds me of my grandmother with her gold bracelets that dangle from her hands. The clock keeps moving, but time seems to not exist here.  

There was a time when our family had the coffee and cornfields to take care of us in Southern Mexico. Now, here in East San Jose, my grandparents have a job no longer in coffee like they did in Mexico, but in recycling. They are constantly accompanied by shopping carts filled with beer bottles and soda cans. I help them when I can.  The sun itches our faces and my grandmother smiles as she stares back at me over her trash bag filled with cans.  

They are why I am working these assembly jobs while planning careers.  Manhood lies here among these realities and dreams for the sons and daughters of immigrants, and if God helps us pull apart this struggle with our two hands, we will.