Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Until there is some resolution to the status of undocumented worker in our country, many families continue to live in fear of that moment when they can no longer find a job, when their posessions are confiscated, and they are forced to return to the poverty that compelled them to leave their native countries in the first place. Flor is such a friend.
"Señora, if we are forced to go back, there will be no work for the men there. The small farms are gone and there is no place for Jose Luis to find a days labor. But for a woman who can sew, there may be work." A number of Korean sewing factories have relocated to southern Mexico and they employ women and girls to stitch apparel that is then sent back to Korea for wholesale. "Si puedo aprender - If I can learn, then perhaps I can work at one of those factories if we have to go back. Will you teach me?"
Flor had been selling comida tipica - common food - to the working men and boys living near her. From her earnings, she bought an old Singer sewing machine. One day recently, I took some bright pink cloth to her house and we spent the morning learning some very basic skills. It was Flor's first sewing lesson, but as you can see from the photo, she has promise!
We may not be able to build factories in impoverished areas around the world, we may not even know how to repair the broken immigration policies of our own part of the world, but we can teach useful skills - even one at a time - to men and women who have the desire to learn. Perhaps when we hold on to such knowledge, willingly or not, keeping it from those who could most benefit, it is not so unlike holding on to bread when our neighbor is hungry.
