leaving the chicken factory town
Saturday, September 19th, 2009
Can you imagine living in rural America almost your entire life and then someone knocks on your door and tells you you have to go live in Guatemala. My friend (I’ll call her Maria) and co-worker had that very thing happen to her. She grew up in a small southern town after her mother came here from Guatemala to work in a chicken factory. The chicken factory paid for her mother to get here with her two kids, Maria and her little brother.
Ok, so Maria goes to school, graduates and gets a job in a hospital while trying to put herself through nursing school. Maria falls in love with the wrong man and has two children. (it happens) Going to school is even more difficult, so she just concentrates on working to provide for her little ones and buys a house and a car and pays taxes on all of it and she marries an American boy.
Now, I think I need to add, that I had no idea that Maria wasn’t American, she looks American, talks American and puts ketchup on her french fries and ranch dressing on her salad.
The hospital loves her because she is able to wear many hats. Nurses aide, unit secretary and pharmaceutical tech as well as Spanish language interpreter. When the hospital finds out that they are going to lose their beloved Maria, they write letters, and raise money and call Senators and Congressman. None of this seems to help. Lawyers have taken her money and the Senators and Congressmen say they can’t interfere with the deportation “process”. The hospital has lost a wonderful employee and a wonderful, kind person. I lost my Spanish teacher.
Maria told me she didn’t even know where Guatemala was and we looked it up on the internet. I exclaimed, Guatemala is beautiful! Why would you want to stay in a chicken factory town when you could live on the beach? She said, “because this is my home, I’ve never been anywhere else.” So many American kids would give anything to get out of their chicken factory towns. But — would they really give anything?
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo538621.htm
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo575092.htm
So I guess my idea is. Why don’t we go to Guatemala and open hospitals and resorts so Maria will want to live there and she won’t even miss the chicken factory town. Americans will be able to work in the chicken factory instead of Maria’s mother. Maria will be working at a posh American resort in Guatemala on the beach and we can have our chicken factory jobs back. Then everyone is happy right?
