Personal Resonse/Reflection Inspiried By "Workers"

Upon reading “Workers”, I am reminded of the time that I myself did hard labor on a construction site, working in conjunction with the others that were hired on and paid next to nothing, to roof a house under the sweltering Memphis sun in the middle of summer. We worked as a coherent whole, volunteers and also hired immigrant workers, to see this job to completion. I felt a scene of oneness, togetherness with these people that would carry with me in my memory. Of course, this is a different scenario but one of the reasons that I volunteered to take on this hard labor was to show my father that I also knew what real work was like. He is a carpenter and has been for all of his life. At this time I was a young girl in high school, enrapt in my own sense of dandyism. I was obsessed with enriching my own intellect and manner, devouring books, studying languages, and also in my own sense of fashion; a counter culture elegance spurred by my disdain for popular culture and the fashion of that time. In the end of that summer's undertaking, we completed our task and I emerged a little hardened and with a new sense of accomplishment and pride.

Just last year, destitute and desperate for a job, I was hired at dry cleaner's. I was the only Caucasian girl and worked with my boss and his family, all immigrants from Mexico. The were some of the hardest workers that I would ever meet, and always efficient and kind. We made little money, but worked as a unit to ensure daily that all was finished. They always called me “German Girl” because they thought that I had an accent and wouldn't accept the fact that my own family were not immigrants as well. So, I didn't argue and worked with them, now a German (or sometimes Russian) immigrant myself. It was extremely humbling to work with this family. Everyone worked, the mother, the children, sometimes 12 hours a day or more.

While looking up the words “los pobres” that were used by Richard Rodriguez in this selection, I came across the Spanish proverb “La esperanza es el pan de los pobres.” In English this translates to, “Hope is the poor man's bread.” This is such a simple and poignant statement, and it seems as if the author felt this as he labored with the Mexican workers that all arrived and departed together on that truck. Their silence stayed with them as if he could feel that very proverb as he watched them daily. In my own life I have also experienced this under my own circumstances, though a middle class American citizen, having met and labored with immigrant workers and “los pobres”. This allowed me to look upon them with new eyes, and to more fully recognize their plight in a much more conscientious fashion.