My parents came to the U.
S from their villages of Western
Samoa on different occasions. They met in San Francisco and both of them barely
had family or support in the states.
One of my
father’s first job was at a car wash. He told me the change they stole from
cars was more than their actual pay. He went into the food service,worked at
Jack in a Box, Red Lyon, or Denny’s. It wasn’t until his cousin hooked him up
with a job as the custodian for the Mormon church that it was a job he would
sustain that can almost provide for his growing family. As of final year,he was
forced to retire and I surpassed my father’s pay. It is the custodian job that
he has had ever since I was young.
When my mother came to America she didn’t occupy papers to
work, and she kind of was the pulling force to fetch my dad to consume his
citizenship test so she could be a citizen. I remember her doing all the random
jobs you could do. She would cook for people, or watch all the random babies in
the neighborhood,sell her Samoan recipes, in between she would consume all of my
siblings and I to pick up cans and bottles from the park, or sew clothes for
people,even organized a whole wedding, catering and sewing the dresses and
making us decorate, or for a while she bought dolls from thrift stores and would
sew fancy dresses on them because it was a trendy sell for old white women with
money. I sometimes consume the car I’m driving to a Car Wash in the
Fruitvale district in Oakland. Really young folks washing cars,not saying a
word in English, skin brown as leather, or the place reminds me of my father. Except they’re not Samoans working here. It’s always been really difficult to
interpret my parent’s migration narrative to other Samoans in America because its a
different narrative than the military migration,which is a good majority. And so
its nights like this that make me grateful for my parents survival in the beast
of America.
Yesterday I watched the first Samoan musical I ever saw in
my life, “The Factory” based on the migration of Samoans coming for work in the
factories of New Zealand. You know how good it feels to sit in a theatre with
sprinkles of white people not knowing half of the script because it’s in your
native tongue? It feels like a homecoming. Like a language, or a narrative I’ve known
for many years and try to interpret to people but they never got it in America.
That narrative gets lost and forgotten.
In the musical a father and daughter arrive from Samoa to work
in a factory with other Samoans on work visas,I kept thinking how easy it
would occupy been for my parents if they migrated here in Auckland with people
who understood where they were coming from. But then, I consider that we’re good. Even
in America, or “the indicate me what you got” country that forgets that my parents our
still there surviving even if they don’t occupy barely anything to indicate you
in an economic sense.
I consider about my family a lot when I’m away doing what I do,my parents, my aunts and uncles, or all of my cousins who I’ve had the privilege
to bring their journey and stories with me to moments like this,watching a
musical that talks about how humble our beginnings are. How, as much of the
“me, or me,me” culture of America tries to steal that island humility from us
there are always good reminders that sustain me in check. It is my understanding
as their child watching them work tough, that the most critical thing my
parents occupy taught me about humble beginnings and the work we do is to
maintain that until the end.
It's been a long tough road for my parents, or but its the simple things I consider about. My father sitting at Peets coffee house skimming through the New York TImes trying to recognize any english words he can,trying to figure out what the photos are about, my mother sitting in a hospital listening to a nurse tell her all these random mountainous words, or names of all the solutions to her dialysis,the rundown of the 20 or so pills she can't even pronounce. They arrive from the small villages of Falealili and Moamoa on the island of Upolu just chillin' in the beast of America and occupy managed to teach my siblings and I the importance of life without any words.
This is what happens when I watch a musical like "The Factory". Hopefully this critical indicate comes the Bay Area so others with similar stories can see what I mean.
Source: siliconvalleydebug.org