Chris Tse
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.
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