The case of the disposable man

I found myself walking- almost trudging up the stairs back to my office this morning. My walk sounded more like a dragging shuffle than my normally cute click- clack stiletto stride. My shoulders are still burdened with a heavy sense of grief, confusion and frustration- so much so that I can feel the knots weaving themselves into my muscles. My tears have since dried after my first meeting with the disposable man yesterday, and my energies have turned from enraged to empowered.

Did you know that at any point during the day here on Staten Island you can drive down to Port Richmond and pick up any number of disposable men? They wait in groups on the corner of Forest avenue. Some huddle in the day laborers union hall at El Centro. Others might be milling around the street, waiting for you to open your car doors, scoop them up and give them disposable man duties for the day- as long as you’ve got the cash.

What is a disposable man you ask? It is a man without a name. Without a family. Without “documents”. Without civil rights and liberties. Without a past. Without a future. Without the need to be treated equally. Without the need to be respected. Without the need to be valued as a human being. Without a doubt- these disposable men might even think of themselves as disposable. With all certainty, that is exactly how some are treated.

My disposable man and his co-worker were picked up on a street corner, brought to a private home, given several bottles of chemicals (with labels written in English), and were directed to “clean the wall”. No protection for their bodies, no gloves or masks were included to perform these disposable duties.

Have you ever seen what acid does to the human body? I have. My disposable man has. and he will live with the consequences of not sticking up for himself (because he obviously felt that something was not right) for the rest of his life.

Yet the man who hired these disposable men did not get his hands dirty. or burnt down to and past the bone. He will never know what the future holds for his day workers because he hired those disposable men for their “disposability”. Didn’t he?

What do you think this is?

Popular and scientific belief dates this pre-historic uniting of nations back 250 million years. I wonder if carbon dating can tell us if the species in existence lived harmoniously- regardless of race or gender, sexual identity, creed or the pronunciation of their names.

Funny right? Not so SINYers. Lets ponder this for a moment. How many of you have been the victim of a horrible mispronunciation of your name? My name, as popular as several famous singers have made it, constantly finds itself on the butchering block. Maybe due to unfamiliarity, maybe because the person saying it really doesn’t care if they know the real me or not- who knows.. What I do know is that nowadays there are an abundance of unfamiliar-difficult to read, forget about to begin to pronounce- names that have traveled to this little speck on the east coast from far far away.

Should this deter us from trying to greet a person? I think not my friends. Butcher away when you’re calling on those Margozata’s, those Miu Huy Lie’s, those Ladislov’s and those Javier’s..

It’s fine to call the name out loud, then yell the name even louder. Build your anxiety, frustrations and lucidly mean thoughts until (when someone pronounces it correctly for you) you scream (in front of 20+ people):

“What do you think this is the United Nations?”

If you’ve never done this before- breathe easy. Because yes, I do think this (NYC or more specifically, siny) is the United Nations. You don’t live holed up in a cave in Iceland. Look around you. Look at all of the colors. Hear all of the unfamiliar pretty sounds those colors are making. Smell the invigorating aroma those colors are basked in. Those colors represent the places that were once all connected. Sooner or later those colors will mix themselves together and create a color so true, so real, so perfectly blended that we will all forget plate tectonics separated the supercontinent. Sooner or later anywhere you go, any “weird” name you have will be pronounced with ease and finesse. The nations are uniting. Get with it.

Xenophobe defined

Main Entry: xe·no·pho·bia

Pronunciation: \ˌze-nə-ˈfō-bē-ə, ˌzē-\

Function: noun            Etymology: New Latin              Date: 1903

: fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign

Apparently Staten Island is home to some folks who do not think too much about what they say out loud. These are direct quotes from our culture shocked society.

why xenophobe?

Much of my work has been dedicated to advocating for all of the ESLers in siny. ESLers are English as a second language learners. Immigrants. Foreigners. Different. Uh oh.

I honestly thought that the majority of people were accepting of the cultural differences these ESLers brought into our little city. Last Friday I learned that perhaps I’ve naively overlooked a few important things in my crusade for equality:

1. We live in siny where there are still labels like “good” and “bad” parts of town.

2. We live in a city thats seen a huge influx of imm’s from diverse parts of the world. (can’t wait for the 2010 census stats btw)

3. We live in a city where change is scary, where it’s frowned upon to be DIFFERENT.

I realized that there are two sides to this issue- the first is that hatred is a raw and shocking emotion that usually ends up showing its vile form through language. My specialty. This language comes from our xenophobes, but to whom is it directed?

To whomever has their ears and mind open to dissect and understand its meaning. This could mean that our ESL imm’s receive the blunt of our xenophobe’s insults, or it could mean that those comments would begin to be heard by someone who is so frustrated and shocked herself that she- okay- I have decided to start this blog to share my jaw dropping experiences with you.

I said begin to be heard. Because although language is my specialty, the meaning of this language has finally intruded my happy little mind and has burst my happy little bubble of ignorance. I was completely ignorant to the culture clash that exists, has existed and will continue to exist until people learn more about their new neighbors.