Canned and Crushed

Canned and Crushed — page 7 — 6 CANNED AND CRUSHED for a second time in two weeks Miss Hamilton didn’t actually say the whole truth did she Maybe a partial truth will do Or maybe you would call it a little white lie This truth thing can get pretty complicated Promise you won’t go blabbing Then I will tell you the whole truth My dad is officially laid off from his official job He fell off a scaffold while he was putting shingles on a roof He doesn’t have a legal permit to work in the US so he can’t get workmen’s compensa tion or unemployment He was working for a guy who knew my Uncle Pablo You know how that goes I see your mind turning Undocumented worker you’re thinking Illegal Well nothing is as it appears on the surface Remember that Always go deeper The tiny little iceberg triangle you see above the surface is a small portion of the giant mountain of ice underneath big enough to sink the Titanic My dad has an engineering degree from the best technical institute in Mexico City He has the same brilliant inventor ideas as me But here’s the thing my dad comes from the ancient Zapotec people The noblest Mexican Indians Do you know anything about family heritage Well if you do you know that people can get very proud about their family heritage Being the best provider for his family is in my dad’s blood It’s in my blood too

Canned and Crushed — page 8 — BIBI BELFORD 7 Since an engineer in Mexico gets paid two-thirds less than one in the US my dad found an American company to sponsor him after he got his degree but at the last minute the job fell through Did he give up Nope He was packed and ready to go so he just risked everything and came here hoping the company would change its mind after meeting him in person Sounds like a good idea doesn’t it Wrong-o He should have waited and applied for a worker’s permit Now that he’s undocumented everything is complicated I try to ask questions to understand it better but I don’t It’s been five years and now Dad says he can’t compete with the brand new engineers and their technical knowledge He says he needs to go back to school But since me and Girasol and my mom came here to live with him four years ago all he does is work And guess what He makes more money pounding nails in the US than engineers make in Mexico Now my dad is hurt so my mom who is still working on her English got a cleaning job to pay the bills Parents still need to feed their kids and take them to the doctor when they’re sick My dad can’t lift heavy stuff and he rubs his back and grunts when he stands up But does he lie around and feel sorry for himself Nope Remember his ancestors are the Zapotecs the

Canned and Crushed — page 9 — 8 CANNED AND CRUSHED smartest proudest Mexicans that ever lived I want to be just like my dad He works two jobs now but they’re not real jobs For one job he picks up roadkill for the Department of Streets and Sanitation and gets paid by the carcass Gross huh For the second job he collects scrap metal to recycle for cash things like rusty old bikes and pipes with yours truly doing a lot of the lifting Now what would you tell your nosy teacher about how your dad makes a living Here’s what I decide to do My dad is unemployed Thank you Sandro There’s no shame in being unemployed He’ll find a job soon I’m sure Aren’t you sorry you caused such a scene Now let’s turn over a new leaf shall we No actually I’m not sorry I’m never sorry Would the Avengers be sorry Would my Zapotec dad be sorry No way José The shall we request reminds me of my visit to the principal on the first day of school And if you’re not too bored I should probably tell you about it now while I’m divulging all this information On our first day we took a tour of the grand old school most likely to kill time while Miss Hamilton was memorizing our names I mean seriously what do most of us care about at school Making sure we know how to get to the play ground gym and bathroom not always in that order

Canned and Crushed — page 10 — BIBI BELFORD 9 Anyway our class climbed the flight of stairs from our second floor domain to the third floor where the fifth graders rule They even have their own computer lab up there so they don’t have to associate with the rest of us Last year we never went up to the third floor I guess we were too young to be aware of the dangers I mean there is just that one railing and it’s a long way down I think by the time we got up there we heard one thousand shall we’s Let’s be quiet in the hallway shall we Let’s take a peek in the library shall we Let’s show the first graders our best manners shall we So at the top of the stairs of course we knew a shall we was coming Let’s keep our hands on this side of the railing shall we And I snapped Just like that I mean what was the good of being higher up in the sky than I had ever been except for that one airplane ride So I leaned over that railing and let fly the biggest wad of spit I could muster on short notice And from way down on the first floor you could actually hear a splat which was exactly what I was hoping for But then a face looked up from the first floor and the next thing I knew I wasn’t on the tour anymore Instead I’m in Principal Smalley’s office and his face looks even madder than it did from way down on the

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