By Jacqueline Lourdes Blas Gamero
Fall 2016 Kaplan Award Winner
When I moved to Seattle, I met a woman in the laundry room named Margarita. Her high pitch, child-like tone of voice radiated throughout the entire room when she spoke. At the time, I felt like our encounter was a sort of mysterious Divine plan that had been masterfully conceived for me. Margarita’s eyes are like those of a sentinel, who is divorced from conventions whose joys are not affected by the clock of a competitive society. While Margarita was still speaking, I heard a voice that whispered in my soul “in God’s eyes, we are all the same, remember where you come from and how we all go through situations in life.” We all make mistakes; we are all humans.
After a short silence, she says “Hi, do you speak Spanish?” I say “yes!” making the effort to appear as warm as she is, but my voice sounds a bit insecure about whether or not the conversation should keep going. After few seconds she says “Are you working? if you don’t have a job I can help you, I know a lot of people.” I reply, “I just got here, and yes, I am looking for a job.” Primero Dios, Jacqueline, there is a reason I am meeting you. In fact, Margarita helped me at the time to get one a job as a cashier at Microsoft. At first sight, Margarita can give the impression of a hilarious, care-less, rule-less, yet strong-willed woman. Her hair is always messy, except on Sundays when she goes to church. She likes her hair in the beehive back combing style of the 60s, big puff up from the middle up to the back with bangs that fall on the two sides of her cheeks. Her hair shapes her face to look perfectly round. When she smiles, her poppy red lips cause everyone to stare at her. Margarita really loves to talk and eat all day. A lot of times she can scarf down a meal so fast that it is as if the food were never there. Margarita is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who has lived in Seattle for twenty years. She works at times as a care giver or as an on call sentry without salary.
Margarita, at times, inadvertently can put you in such embarrassing situations that you may not want to see her again. I still remember the day when she invited us to a restaurant on her birthday, she ate almost half of the menu including the desserts, but left after someone called her. Her other friend and I we were gawking at each other. Margarita never came back, and we did not know who was going to pay the bill. I was beginning to learn that Margarita always has an emergency escape plan. As we waited for her to come back, the waiter waited for us to pay the check. Even though Margarita has put me in embarrassing situations more than once, I still think that she is funny and a great person. She has taken care of me when I was sick and has taken care of other people around the community when they most needed it. It might sound weird to you, but I feel happy to have a friend like her. Margarita is like a moth, in the sense that sometimes she can acts erratically and unpredictably. I remember that I was once dating a guy and asked her if she would babysit my daughter. When the guy came over, she came out and took pictures of his car and told him that she had his license plate. I was so embarrassed. You really never know what Margarita will do. Last year, she made me feel like a worm when I could not help her pay her electricity bill. She did not want to talk to me anymore after that. However, it turned out that living without electricity was more a blessing than a curse because she recovered her vision and does not need to buy glasses anymore to read. It turned out that now I am her special “worm.”
Before I left Peru, I was told not to make friends with Mexican immigrants, they told me “most of the Mexican immigrants are criminals’; be careful, don’t trust them.” I did not understand why I should put all people in the same box. Margarita has learned to make a living by helping others. People call her everyday to have breakfast, lunch or dinner, buy her gifts or take her on vacation. People, at times, have helped her to pay her rent and other things that she needs. She is sometimes like the ambulatory red-cross available for the community 24 hours a day. Her phone rings all day. People with emergencies call her all the time. Margarita is a Christian believer and has never lost the hope to one day become an American citizen. Her closet has become a sanctuary where she keeps different collages she has made from different magazines, marketing fliers and other cute magazines that came on her way. She has designed her future with these collages. You can see President Obama proclaiming the reform for all immigrants, a family surrounding her, her graduation day, a wonderful marriage, trips around the world and many other dreams that I wish would become reality for her and for me too.
Many people today, including my family, don’t understand how I can still be her friend and talk to her. They think that she is crazy. But the truth is that I admire Margarita. She is what I secretly wish I had the courage to be. Her faith in good happening to her can sometimes cross the borders of the rational, but that’s what real faith is about.
When I was living in Italy, I used to spend time walking around the beautiful squares and streets. Walking around Rome is like walking around a living museum. One of my favorite places is the Trevi Fountain. This year, the fountain was illuminated in red to commemorate the blood of a thousand Christians martyred for their faith. I wonder if the blood and courage of Christians during the early centuries could be compared to the bravery and valor of immigrants like Margarita. No salary, no health insurance, no family to support her, just an unnoticed but impressive soul. Only the excitement of a mundane but faithful Christian life. She is a moth who sometimes may be the victim of prejudice because she is not as admirable as a butterfly. Moths may, for some people, look troublesome but they are natural creatures with the gift of flight!