The Humility of Labor
This winter, out of all the memories of trudging to dining hall in brutal, below -freezing temperatures and paradoxically enjoying walks down the path when the temperature hit high 40s, I distinctly remember one particular day. I had decided to take a right before the church as I walked back to Browning and ran into a construction worker enjoying his break. “I remember when all of this was dirt,” I told him, pointing out the swift progress that had been made since September on the expansion of the Forrestal-Bowld Music Center.
“Yeah, it’s been good. We come in at seven in the morning, work all day and leave at four, five in the afternoon,” he said as he put on his gloves and hard hat. As I took the bend around the back of the church, he left me with one piece of advice: “Stay in school.” His message was simple: work hard so you don’t end up like me. When he went back into the construction zone, I noticed we were separated by a fence—a physical barrier, as it was meant to be, but also a metaphorical one that split my world of privilege and opportunity from his life. He reminded me of my parents. My mom, a short Colombian woman with the will to do almost anything, has worked as a manicurist and pedicurist for most of her life. She has also cleaned homes and offices to help support the family. My dad, a tall, gray haired man with wrinkles on his face and hands, has worked every job possible: gardener, car cleaner, mechanic, construction worker and janitor. In fact, name anything that has to do with manual labor and he’s done it. My parents do not have college degrees. My dad doesn’t even have a high school diploma. In today’s world, the role of higher education has moved itself from the realm of luxury to the realm of necessity. A high school diploma, much less a college one, is no longer an optionality for economic mobility, but a requirement.
Growing up, I saw just how hard my parents worked. When we moved to the United States, my mom worked second shift at a pen factory and my dad worked third shift at a shoe factory. Years later, mom and dad would bring my brother and me to their part--time job. They never dared to leave us at home because they thought either we were too young to be left home alone or someone would call the police on them for leaving us home alone. They would hide us in the office supply closet just in case one of the office workers came in during the night. If a worker saw one of us, he or she could tell my parents’ boss, who would then fire them. I became quite good at hiding, but I also saw the lengths to which mom and dad went to provide for my brother and me. Later in life, mom and dad would miss our parent--teacher meetings, theater performances and sports competitions all because they had to work. This proximity to labor was not something any 10-year-old could easily swallow. I hated that my parents had to work all the time. I hated that my life wasn’t normal like the rest of the kids in my class whose parents worked Monday through Friday for eight hours a day. However, this proximity to labor showed me that cleaning toilets and offices, as my parents would say, was not something that they want me to be doing for the rest of my life, or that I would like to do. This proximity to labor served as a foundation of gratitude—I understood that everything I am enjoying today is made possible by my parents and countless others.
Every one of us is the mere recipient of someone else’s labor and sacrifice, even Exonians who have never seen their dad’s hands blued by the long hours he spent cleaning cars in the winter for $50 a piece, or their mom unable to bend her back after giving pedicures all day long. The women and men who clean your dining hall tables, the custodians who clean your bathrooms, the construction workers who build your buildings, the E&R workers who clean and fold your clothes, the staff who shovel your pathways and clean your Harkness tables and so many countless other people too are the people who make your very experience possible. Be grateful for them, for you will not only appreciate your success a little bit more, but will also see that you too, regardless of who you are, are standing on the shoulders of countless people.