and I made Dad’s favorite dinner—a whole fried chicken and pancit with minced green onions, shredded cabbage, carrots, pork tenderloin, peeled shrimp, and soy sauce, working silently beside each other to prepare it. Even though I’m watching my weight, I heap a second helping onto my plate.
“It’s nice to see my family for a change,” Dad says. He squints, peering at Danny and Isko. “It’s awfully quiet at this dinner table. You boys must be up to some mischief. I know you too well.”
Isko giggles and Danny kicks him under the table. “We’re not up to anything,” Danny says. “Huh, Isko?”
“Nuh-uh. Not us,” Isko says. “We’re not up to no good.”
Cutting off a piece of fried chicken, I correct him. “You mean you’re not up to any good.”
“Yeah!” Isko says. “That’s what I mean.”
“Dumb little brother. She’s tricking you,” Danny says. He stands up, takes his plate to the sink, and returns to the table. “Can I be excused?”
Not looking up from his plate, Dad tells him to sit down. “Spend some time with your family. You act more like a teenager than your sister.”
“Leave him alone,” Mom says. “You don’t have to compare them.”
“I just want to spend some time with my children. Is that so terrible? I wanted to spend every minute with my father when I was Danny’s age. When he came home from harvesting sugarcane, I would pull his boots off his feet. It was an honor to take off his shoes. And now I can’t even get my boys to eat dinner with their family for more than fifteen minutes.”
“Okay. So does that mean I have to stay?” Danny asks.
“Sit down,” Dad says.
Danny sulks over to his seat and plops down on the chair. From under his butt comes the sound of a long, gassy explosion. Pfffffffft!
Danny jumps up. “Aw! Man!”
Isko doubles over, laughing so hard he’s gasping for air.
Danny picks up the whoopee cushion from his seat. He throws it at Isko but misses. It lands on top of the pancit. Dad’s face turns red.
At first we think Dad is going to yell but then both Mom and I try to stifle our giggling, and soon we can barely keep the laughter back. It’s the thing that cracks the Cold War, and Dad laughs too. It’s then that I realize nothing has changed, really. We’re still our family. We’re still here in America. At least for now.
“It’s not my fault that Danny’s a stinkatron,” Isko says.
Danny fights back. “You’re the gas master!”
“Stink-a-zilla!”
“Fartzilla!”
“Hey, Isko. You know what they call King Kong’s little brother?”
Isko, shaking his head, smiles mischievously.
“King Krap!”
“Okay! Enough! Out!” Dad yells, shooing them away from the table. “Water your mother’s garden. Then you go to your room and finish your homework.”
Danny starts to complain that there’s an art project he wants to finish, but Dad won’t accept any arguing.
I take the dishes to the sink and begin rinsing them while Mom and Dad sit at the table talking. It’s mostly small talk at first. After a few minutes, though, I can hear them arguing with each other even over the running water. “This isn’t the end,” Dad says. “There are plenty of undocumented workers in this city. You don’t even need papers. Work under the table.”
“I liked working at the hospital.” Mom pouts. “Cleaning houses or offices isn’t going to pay enough. And there won’t be any benefits.”
I put the dishes in the dishwasher loudly, letting them know I can hear everything they’re saying, but Mom doesn’t lower her voice.
“I have to work a job that pays at least as much as the hospital. Or else we’ll lose the house. We have two boys who will soon be eating everything in sight. How will I keep up with them?”
When I had asked them earlier how they bought the house in the first place, they said anyone can buy real estate in America if you don’t need a loan. Tito Sonny had loaned them money to buy the house and over the years they had been able to pay him back.
I finish the dishes and sit back down at the table. I hate hearing my parents argue about money, but I want to be part of the conversation. I don’t want them to hide anything from me anymore.
“I could start working,” I say. “I’ll give up cheer and get a job.” If they can work with fake papers, so can I.
“No, Jasmine,” Dad says. “You have to focus on school.”
But why? I think. Why focus on school if we can’t afford to send me to college anyway? Not without a scholarship, and we all know I can’t get one if I’m not a citizen or a legal resident. All the federal and state aid grants require a social security number and proof of legal residency or citizenship—of which I have neither.
I’m going to miss the UC application deadline that’s coming up, but I can’t worry about college right now. With my mom out of work, I have to do something. I can’t let them lose the house. I can’t let my little brothers suffer. I’ve been so selfish this whole time, thinking about only my own dreams and fears. In cheer you can’t let one person take on the weight of the whole team. It’s the same with family. Everyone needs to support each other.
“Why not?” I ask. “I can do it.”
“Absolutely not,” Mom says. She reaches across the table and grabs my hands. “You need to keep your focus on school. There must be scholarships or grants other than government ones. Maybe we can take out a private loan or something.”
She’s in denial, I think.
“We’ll figure it out. You deserve to go,” she tells me.
“And you deserve better than cleaning up other people’s messes, Mom,” I say. “You could get a different kind of job.”
Dad scoffs. “That’s not going to happen without citizenship. Or at least another set of fake papers.”
“I’m tired of lying,” Mom says. “We need to do things the right way.”
Mom tells us that she’s found several lawyers who help undocumented people, but they’re all shady. “It’s a scam. They want too much money. Isn’t there an alliance out there of lawyers who want to help people like us who are already here and have been for years?”
“Better to leave it alone,” Dad says. “Fly under the radar. These issues are debated on the news every day. Politicians never solve the problems. They just talk. Worrying about it isn’t going to fix anything.”
“What if your boss finds out you’re illegal?” Mom asks. “How do you know my supervisor won’t call your boss? How do you know they won’t send someone to the house? Is that how you want to live? Just waiting for the hammer to fall?”
“There’s no hammer,” Dad says. “We just got unlucky. Thousands of undocumented workers live in Los Angeles. What are they going to do? Deport all of us? Take a month off. You need the break.”
“No,” Mom says. “We need the money. I’ll get another job. I’ve done it before. I can do it again. It just might take time to find the right one.”
Despite our arguments, I love how my mother can be so tough. She may have a little breakdown, but then she’s back up on her feet, fighting for herself again.
I’m a fighter too.
I go back to my room and turn on my computer. With a start, I realize that tomorrow is the last day to turn in the acceptance