I moved to America in January 2024.
After dropping out in early 2023, I spent a year in Peru working on a mobile app that failed. Then I came as a transfer student.
In my first semester, I lived in the dorms and ate most of my meals at the Dining Commons.
The people working there were mostly two groups: Indians and Latinos. But there was a clear difference between them.
The Indians were master’s students in their twenties. They worked part-time in the kitchen to earn extra money while studying.
The Latinos were in their sixties. They worked full-time.
The contrast in age and commitment always struck me.
One group was there temporarily. The other out of necessity.
One would leave this job within a year. The other would likely retire from it.
One had just arrived in this country. The other had been here for decades. Yet both shared the same job.
That semester I got to meet almost everyone who worked in the kitchen.
Most of them came from Mexico, but some were from Guatemala and Honduras. Almost all had arrived in America a long time ago.
They came seeking better opportunities. The pay in America is higher than in Mexico, but many of them had skills and talents that went far beyond kitchen work. What struck me was not that they worked in a kitchen, but that they stayed there for thirty years when they were capable of so much more.
Their potential went unnoticed, and their opportunities stopped short. Now they were old, and this would be the last job they would hold in their lives.
I wish this story was an exception, but the more I spoke with them, the more I realized it was the norm.
Every adult was once a child. Which child dreams of spending thirty years of their life cleaning a kitchen? I don’t know a single one.
I never realized this while I was living in Peru. In Peru everybody is Latino, so poverty has many factors, like class, family, education, or where you were born, but it doesn’t come from being Latino.
In Peru you won’t hear someone say, “I need a gardener, let’s call a Latino.” It doesn’t make sense because we are all Latinos. Race isn’t tied to a particular job. In America, it is.
Once I noticed this, I started working harder so I could find a job in tech as soon as I was able to. And I did. But the pattern repeated itself. At my new job, I wouldn’t see a Latino at all during the day. I only saw them when I was leaving the office and it was time to clean it.
While I was still at university, fear motivated me. But later it began to make me feel sad.
Why was I the only one sitting at the table? What had I done differently from them?
I wanted to help others so badly. But I knew the first step was to learn more about our history to understand the causes of this reality.