I’m on the 6 train right now and sitting across from me are three South American women chattering it up like wild in Spanish. I don’t know if they are Mexican, Guatemalan or Costa Rica but I know them are immigrants. These women are on their way to work and living the traditional American Dream. They are probably going to bust their humps all day. They will clean, watch children or work in a garment factory all day. Right now they are sharing a real moment together. They are laughing, talking about their children and gossiping all the way to work.
It’s wonderful and emotional for me. All I can think about is my Puerto Rican grandmother and my Puerto Rican family who came to New York in the 1940’s. These woman’s stories are probably the same as my Mami, the same as the Jewish woman a generation before her or the Irish the generation for that. The cycle continues and we need this industrious risk taking people in our city. They are the life blood of the City. They dream the dreams and appreciate what the City can do for them. Oh sure, it may be a hard life for them and they may not reap the benefits of the hard work ahead, but their children will. Children like my mother, who came from Puerto Rico at seven years old with my abuela and got her Masters at Hunter. My mother went on to spend over forty years working in the City to help educated the immigrants and poor in New York.
The story has to continue and we need these people
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