Iyow - in your own words

Kate was 26, just out of law school and working at a big law firm. She was a second generation Nuyorican who grew up in New York and spoke Spanish because her grandparents still spoke mostly Spanish and she’d studied it in school since sixth grade.

She worked as a first year associate lawyer and often stayed late at the office to draft documents for more senior lawyers and finish her assignments. Many evenings, she was the last person in the office and the cleaning lady, Rosela – a petite and plump Ecuadorian woman in her late 30s, with teeth that jutted out so much that it was difficult for her to completely close her mouth and with brassy highlights dyed into her hair – would often stop by Kate’s office to chat. Rosela had a wonderful sense of humor, and she often ribbed Kate about her long work hours (“these are the best years of your life, how are you spending them staring at books?!”). Rosela asked Kate to help her find a millionaire lawyer to marry and rescue her, or if Kate couldn’t manage that, Kate should find one for herself, have a whole minivan full of babies, and then hire her to live with Kate’s family in their big, beautiful mansion.

Whenever Rosela asked Kate for help, Kate did her best to give assistance. Kate helped her to find free English-as-a-second-language classes. As a sign of Rosela’s appreciation, she often brought Kate pastries that Kate shared with the other lawyers (Rosela’s boyfriend worked in an industrial bakery that distributed pies and donuts and breads to local supermarkets). Kate and her officemates all agreed that the coconut cream pie was the best one, but that Kate needed to stop talking to Rosela because a bunch of single desk jockeys (and their waistbands) couldn’t afford to sit around eating pies all day.

One evening Kate was working under a tight deadline—she had an assignment from one of the most important partners drafting documents that would be key to protecting their client’s interests. The senior associate working on the case was also in the office, working late, and reminded Kate of what an honor it was to have the assignment and not to screw it up.

Kate dreaded Rosela’s appearance that night. She could practically hear the slow drone of the wheels on the big, plastic garbage can, the spray bottle of disinfectant hanging over the lip of the can, and the yellow rubber gloves nestled into the handle of the garbage can. Kate knew Rosela’s visit would break her flow, and she would have to give Rosela at least thirty minutes of billable time that she desperately needed.

Kate decided she was going to tell Rosela that she was too busy to talk, she knew Rosela would understand.

Sure enough, like clockwork, at 8 p.m., Rosela arrived at her door. But this day was different. Rosela didn’t knock and jump away and then jump inside, she didn’t meow from the corridor and giggle as she called out “gatita” (little cat) her nickname for Kate. She just walked in and sat down in one of the chairs facing Kate’s desk. Kate felt annoyed by Rosela’s presumptive intrusion. She kept typing and tried to finish the paragraph of the motion in limine she was drafting (to preclude the introduction of evidence that would have been highly damaging to the client if admitted).

She finally looked up and realized that Rosela was fighting back tears. Kate felt her heart sink. This was going to be more than the thirty minutes she didn’t have. Kate was going to have to stay the whole night; she was going to be eating vitamin-packed snack bars and guzzling green tea at three o’clock in the morning. God, I hate myself for being such a putz. This is why people keep their distance from each other, she thought with an internal groan. She rubbed the center of her forehead, feeling the muscles cramping from her shoulders to her neck. Her head hurt.

Rosela waited for permission to speak. Kate looked at her and tried to feel sympathetic.

“Que te pasa?” (What’s wrong?)

“No, no pasa nada… nada, gatita.” (No, nothing’s wrong…nothing, lil’cat)

Shit, she thought.

“Do you ever feel like it’s all pointless and you shouldn’t try anymore?” Rosela asked, speaking softly.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, sometimes it’s just harder than others. Have you ever lived in a cold climate before?”

“No, but I like the cold. I can wear coats that cover my barriga.” (gut)

They looked at each other. Rosela looked like she was holding back a mountain of grief.

“What is it?”

“I go to work, I got to school, I go home, I send a little money home, I go out with my boyfriend.”

“It’s boring?”

“Not so much that. It’s just not what I expected. I work from 8 a.m. at one job, I get finished at 3 p.m. I’m the one who cleans the ovens where my boyfriend works. I go back to the apartment, I share it with three people, it’s small, and in a bad part of town. I take a nap. I get something to eat. I change, get on the bus and I come here. I have a good relationship with the boss here, he used to pay me $4 an hour, now I make $5. Then I work from 6 p.m. till 12 a.m. here, I get finished, I wait for the bus. Unless my boyfriend wants to give me a ride, but that’s not usually till Friday night. I get home, on the bus, at 1:30 a.m., I have to walk three blocks. There are bad people in that neighborhood, morenos, you know. It’s not so good. I get there, and it’s not home, it’s tired-like, old and ugly, and my room is small and sad and I’m tired but I can’t sleep. I go to bed and wake up by 6:30 a.m. to do it all again.

I’m always tired. I feel like everything is thick. And I’m getting fat. And old. Look at these teeth. I’m like a fish, I can’t keep my mouth closed. I call home, and I miss them. I worked as an assistant in a jewelry shop, I spent my time touching diamonds. My mother always asks me why I don’t send more money home. I want to get a husband, I need to get my teeth fixed. Maybe I should get them pulled. There’s a dentista, he advertises on TV, he take them all out and charge you monthly. I could do that, get pretty fake teeth, what you think?”

“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. My grandmother did that (she was a cleaning lady who couldn’t speak English) and her whole mouth collapsed in around her fake teeth, she always looked like she was sucking lemons with those false teeth and they were too big.” Kate said.

“Oh.”

“So what about your friends you live with?” Kate said.

“I go to school, and I’m the slowest one in the class. I sit at the machine and I just want to put my head in my hands and go to sleep. She start talking and I don’t even know what to say. Jibberish comes out of my mouth. It sounds like deaf people talking to me, I can’t get control of my tongue. I am alone here. What’s the point? All the babies at home, my family, the music, the dancing. None of that is the same here.

I could take up drinking. But I don’t make enough money. Look, a beer costs what? Two dollars and fifty cents, right? But I don’t have that. I make one hundred dollars a week here, none of us are full-time, we get cash, no benefits. If I don’t show up, nobody call to find out where I am, they just get somebody new. And that’s a boss that likes me. He pays me, he gives Christmas bonus. You know. He’s a nice Italian man. But he doesn’t care about me. He does like my tight pants, though.

I get so tired. I want to close my eyes and give up. I’m never going to have the nice house, clothes, and family, never. I am almost thirty. Okay, I’m over thirty. I’m old. I got here, and I thought I got lucky.

You know, it’s hard to get here. I had to go in a car, in a secret compartment, all the luggage over me, I could barely move when I got out, I couldn’t even breathe. I was scared they were going to kill me. Then you get to Mexico and you get in a boat, you know, the coyote. It was a very small, open boat, full of people, mostly mens. There were sharks in that water, I don’t swim. You know. I could drown. I held on very tight to that boat. And I was seasick. It was cold, so cold. Then you get here.”

“The land of opportunities, the streets paved with gold,” Kate said, smiling.

“I get here, and where do I go? To California, I no like it there. Too expensive, people too pretty. I go to New York. It’s too dirty and crowded, so I end up here, in the middle with nothing to do, fat, cold, and tired.

I work so hard, for what? I pay rent, for nothing. I got a boyfriend. I don’t love him, he don’t love me, for what? My mother calls and complains, why I no send money? More money?”

“Lots of people with money are miserable,” Kate said.

“Well, they’re stupid. If I had money. Money. Oh, if I was rich, I know exactly what I would do, I would get a big house, with a pool, a cook, a driver, a gardener, a pool boy to rub me with oil and I would sit with a big hat, get my teeth fixed, big breasts put on me, and I would relax. Then I would help people like me for fun.

Kate sat there looking at her, not knowing how to comfort her. She had not lived anything near Rosela’s experience, but her family had. Kate smiled at her.

“Do you want to hear about my Granny, the cleaning lady, or the sweat shop seamstress Grand Ma?” Kate said.

“Por supuesto, the cleaning lady, mujer!” (Duh, the cleaning lady, woman!)

“My Granny was independent and fierce. She was born in 1899 and she lived on a farm in Puerto Rico, her Mother was a Spaniard who married a farmhand (el Indio). She got disinherited and had fourteen kids—a lot of them died young—before they were born, or at birth. She died when my Granny, one of the youngest, was nine. Typhoid. Granny got it too, she had boils in her armpits the size of oranges, she told me.

My Granny did not want children or men or love. She wanted to be free. She climbed coconut palms, she stole fruit and vegetables from the church garden and from neighbors She was skinny and she loved to swim. When she was sixteen, she went to visit her Mother’s family and they put her in with the servants. She was staying with her mother’s sister, her aunt. She had stolen her sister’s shoes to visit because she didn’t have any, but they were too small and gave her bumps on her feet—we call them bunions.

She hated that visit. They wouldn’t help her. She went home. She had a friend who went to New York. She decided she was leaving Puerto Rico. She saved up money, and got a sponsor, a German family on Long Island, looking for a nanny. She went when she was 22. She cried herself to sleep every night. She didn’t understand a word of English. She lived in a big house out on Long Island with a family that wasn’t her own. She never left their house. She hated it. She felt like dying.

She wanted to be a nurse and play the piano. She got a job at a factory, she started learning English. She got a dictionary and the newspapers, she listened to the radio. Then she got an apartment, she lived with her friend who originally came here. She got a boyfriend, she got married, she had a baby, she decided the baby would be a nurse. That baby was my Mom. And now I’m here.”

“Did she become a nurse?” Rosela asked.

“No, she’s an artist, she hates blood.”

“Oh.”

“But if you keep working, you’ll get there, maybe not today, but in a couple of generations, you’ll get there.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t help me much does it?” Rosela said.

“No, not really, but it gets better.”

“Easier.”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s get back to work,” Rosela said, standing up and smiling.

Rosela left that job. She called Kate once to tell her that she was living with an Italian family, taking care of their children.