Jobs

 

“I hate how these immigrants come to our country and steal our jobs,”

He was saying to his friend

Motioning to me, and Hardeep, and Eunji

As if we didn’t understand

He steps up to my till

And I wanna grab him by his greasy undone collar and throw him against the wall

I want to pound his maggot bigot face into the ground

Before I tell him how my father

Moved to this country as a 17-year-old

Fresh-faced and scrawny and yellow and immature

To escape the suppression of a dictator government

He worked at a Chinese restaurant during the day

Burning his hands on the wok and scarring his arms in the flames before

Sprinting the five blocks to Concordia University were he attended classes that he never had time to study for anyway

Nighttime meant McDonalds

Where he mopped the floors for petty change

Before retiring to the back of a 1972 Firebird, all Pontiac power and American muscle

And shiny motivation that in order for him to make it in this new nation, he would need to one day live in more than just a car with no windows

Four years and so much pain later, my father graduated from university with his degree

Instantly packing his bags and leaving the east for the greener grasses of BC

“I like the oceans here,” my father one told me, “because I feel like if I get on a boat and float, one day I’ll make it back to the place where I first became, to the place where my race survives and thrives, the place that I forced my memory to erase so that I could make a new life for myself here in Canada.”

“And I like the mountains here,” my father once told me, “because they remind me to always keep climbing.”

My father’s face is lined with pain

His wrinkled hands bear burns and scars that scream pain but spell out desire

His tired eyes belie a fire that still burns within

Yearning to escape and mete revenge on the white boys in college who told him a chink would never make it

His hair is gray beyond his years, a result of fears

That held him jailed

And tears

From classes failed

Yes, this is the image of a man who embodies the working immigrant

Who came here with nothing to make himself something

All the while giving everything he has to a country that has barely given back anything

Yes, this is the image of a man who eked out a living while living in an old sports car

Working hard at the jobs that offer little more than minimum wage and labour scars

Taking the slow rumble of the passing trains as motivation, remind him that those

Who built this nation

Were Chinese, just like him

The original victims of exploitation

And still today, they exploit Asians

Regulating, berating, and hating Asians

So when that train finally slowed down and pulled into the station

My father found peace, remembering those who came before him

My dad’s one of those old school type of immigrants

The type who believes that success is still found on your knees

Scrubbing the floors and clipping weeds

The type of immigrant who would never scold me for tagging school busses

But would beat me for skipping third period chemistry

So I guess maybe now I realize why

My dad never came to my basketball games

Or my races or my shows

Instead, he chose to sit at home reading the paper

And when I walked through the door, he’d simply ask,

“Hey, how’d it go?”

And when I brought home trophies and medals all he ever said was, “Well done, son.”

It’s the sign of a man who came from nothing into something because the one

Day that I brought home a $50 bonus from Mcdonalds for being employee of the month

My dad ripped that shit out of my hand faster than I could blink and said, “We’re going to frame this.”

“What about those,” I said, pointing to my trophies.

“Those make you an athlete,” he said.

“This makes you my son.”

This poem is for the Filipino housekeeper.

It’s for the Indian security guard and the Tamil construction worker.

It’s for the Vietnamese corner store owner and the Chinese truck driver.

It’s for the run-down immigrants who work shit jobs for shit pay to make sure their kids’ lives are worth more than shit.

This poem is for my father.

This poem is for his scars.

And this poem is for the man in McDonalds: I’m sorry I took your job.