By Mario Vega
When I was about 3 years old I remember my mom fighting with my
dad about financial problems, I witnessed that till I was about 14 and when I
was in 5th grade I promised myself to become so rich that my mom
would never have to work or lift a finger the rest of her life. I wanted to
know more about how hard she has worked and what she has done so I interviewed
her… After interviewing my mom I found out some very interesting things about
my mom, me and my family, things I didn’t know before like how my mom worked 2
jobs until 1 week before I was born. I thought interviewing my mom would be the
pest example of the working poor; I’ve seen my mom bust her but for her family
all my life and sustaining a family of migrant and low wage jobs. My mom came
to the United States 3 years before I was born and her first jobs were working
at a burger king where my uncle got her a job and sewing with the people she
met on the way to the United States.
I started off with a few simple question to get the flow of the
interview started, when I asked her what jobs she had when she just got here
she told me “it was very hard to get a job at first, your uncle got me the job
at the burger king and I had to tell people to reference me as a nanny or a
masseuse, all for $4 or $5 an hour”.
Coming from Mexico studying as a nurse my mom had to leave to
escape an abusive husband and find more money for her 2 children. After awhile
in the U.S my mom found it tough trying to get by on the jobs she had and
feeding and clothing my brother and sister as my mom quoted “you guys never
asked for anything cheap, it always had to be the highest quality stuff but I
did it and I was proud to do it”. But she could continue the light prosperity
of living in America, her husband followed her into the U.S and when he
confronted her he accepted him into our home because he had no where to go and
he helped with the kids for awhile.
After asking her about her jobs I asked her how they were and if
they were tough, she didn’t hesitate to tell me how tough they were. She took a
huge breath and lightly massaged her fingers as she told me, “the thing that
was the toughest was communicating with others, they would get so mad at me
when I couldn’t understand something or do something right, it was a scary
feeling cause I was certain I would get fired”. She did get fired from the
burger king but kept her jobs as a masseuse and a nanny; my mother took with
her, her studies of becoming a nurse in Mexico.
The part of her describing her jobs for me took the longest she
told me how her jobs have worn her out. She told how picky and needy the people
she went to massage were and how they asked her to do extra thing like putting more
pressure in certain spot that were naturally tough for her. She told me how
sewing for 14 hours a day would work her hands to the finger nails then coming
home and cooking for 4 people.
Eventually the last things I asked her were about how life was when
I was born and I was surprised at what I learned. When my mom was pregnant with
me she was ecstatic it’s like she got a huge boost of energy, she got another
job and a better one too. She started working in a factory were she got some
benefits through connections and got paid a higher salary, also my abusive
father quit drinking and he actually supported my mom for awhile, everything
was good until I was born. After I was born my father stopped supporting my mom
and started drinking again, so my mom basically had to support a new born, a 12
year old, a teenager and a grown man. She sacrificed so much of her own life;
she never bought her self any new clothes or went out to go eat all her money
went to us.
My mom eventually told me it was really hard and that’s how life
is, she told me that that’s why she gets so mad at me when I get really lazy
sometimes, that she hates knowing that she sacrificed for me the most because I
was the only one born in the U.S and she pushed me hard and worked hard herself
so I can have a way better life then her.
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