Realizing Reality is Not a Fairytale
Taking care of a 5 year old and three teenagers is difficult, especially when you have to do it all by yourself. But somehow, my mom managed to get it done. She was like the queen of the house, and my siblings and I were her loyal steed. As long as we stood by our mom’s side, she would provide us with anything we needed; food, clothes, medicine, and all of the love in the world. Our mother was our queen, or at least that is how I saw it. Around this time, I was obsessed with fairy tales, which is clearly evident from my my observations of the world. The tiny apartment I lived in was inundated with a variety of grade level books, many of which my mom had accumulated in the time she raised my three older siblings. I loved staring at the covers of these different books scattered around my home and imagining all the possibilities of storylines that could be told within their pages.
My books were inanimate objects that could come to life when the words inside were spoken aloud, and I was obsessed with them. I asked my mom to read me fairytales, because I loved enchanted lands and mystical characters, the unique and miraculous plots. The fairy tales my mom read to me were exciting and suspenseful despite always having a happy ending, and most importantly, they taught me that good always overcomes evil. I asked my mom to read me fairytales, so she did. She would take any random book I put in her hands, and start telling me a story. And each time she did, I was transported inside the book and saw everything around me just as it was told. It wasn’t until a decade later, that I found out my mom had been making up each fairy tale that she ‘read’ to me, because she couldn’t read the words of any of the books I gave her.
A few years later, I was 8 years old, and no longer obsessed with fairytales. All I cared about was the Nintendo DSi my brother got me for my birthday and collecting more “Imagine” games. “Imagine” games allowed you to virtually experience any job you could ever think of—a wedding designer, a babysitter, a veterinarian, a detective, a news reporter, a fashion stylist, just to name a few—all within the confines of your Nintendo DSi. This tiny machine allowed me to transport myself into a different kind of place, a simulated reality, no longer filled with fairies and dragons, but with tasks of working and earning money.
I brought my DSi along with me to wherever I had to go and, at 8 years old, the only places I really had to go to were school and wherever my mom went, since my my siblings were still too young to take care of me at home. My mom took me along with her to supermarkets, church services, visits to friends, doctor appointments, and even brought me with her to work. I watched my mom as she would mop the floors of an office, vacuum the dirty carpets of someone’s home, and sweep the floor and wipe the counters of a deli. I witnessed my mom work long hours each day, seeing her transition between different workplaces or wherever she could land a cleaning job. It was moments like these where I realized my mom was treated more as a servant in the real world than as the queen I always imagined her to be at home. It was moments like these where I realized that there was no “Imagine: cleaning lady” game for my DSi.
The deli near my home where my mom cleaned at every day used to be one of my favorite workplaces of hers. It always smelled like black coffee there and I was constantly surrounded by candy, bags of chips, chocolate bars, and soda—so sometimes my mom would get me a snack or two while we were there. The manager who worked at the deli didn’t speak spanish, and my mom struggled with english, so each time the manager wanted to call my mom or tell her where else she should clean, he would yell out “mira!” to her—which translates to “look”—and eventually he got used to calling my mom “Mira,” as if that were her name. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but looking back at it today, I think he should have just called my mom by her real name.
There was a moment in my life, I don’t remember how old I was, when my mom lectured me about doing good in school. She told me that the only reason she doesn’t have a lot of money is because she never got to start high school when she was a young girl in Colombia. My mom explained to me that the only way to get a good job in this country that doesn’t humiliate you is to go to college and earn a degree. She said that with a degree, no one has the right to treat me like dirt. After this, I learned very quickly that it was my responsibility to improve my family’s socioeconomic status. I needed to be the one to get good grades in high school and make it to college. In middle school and high school, I tried my best in every class and studied for each test like my life depended on it, because I thought it did. I had long replaced my beloved DSi with a calculator and my fairy tales with textbooks. My new dream was to live out a future my mother never got the chance to have.
Although it took me a long time to accept the fact that I was born into a family of low-income, I now feel so fortunate that I am able to pursue an education and thus, improve my economic status one day—something that not everyone gets the privilege of doing. When I think of my future today, I envision myself with a career and family that I will have to raise. Except then, my future children will be second-generation college students and second-generation Americans. They will grow up with a good income and will never have to see their mother get treated unjustly because of her legal status or her broken english. Each time this thought enters my head, I wonder how different their social identities will be and how much different they will view society in return.
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