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Growing up, my parents worked seven days a week. My father was a factory worker Monday through Friday and both worked as janitors in the evenings and weekends. For decades they cleaned an assortment of public and commercial buildings. After my father’s retirement in 2021, they scaled back to working just a few hours on weekdays cleaning private homes as a team of two.
The semi-retired life looks good on them. My father is now a regular patron at the local public library where he and Mom took turns as staff janitors for 12 years. My mother relishes their slow mornings and daily walks on a four-mile trail near their home in suburban Chicago.
Working less has also afforded them month-long trips to their native town in Jalisco, Mexico. Last September, their trip back home coincided with Mexican Independence Day celebrations.
Much to my surprise, my typically timid parents volunteered to join their town’s annual parade. Dressed in full costume as Aztec royalty, they waved from the back of a pick-up truck each holding one side of a large Mexican flag. The slew of pictures I received, as well as the flurry of activity on my mom’s Facebook page made me wonder if they have always had these artistic inclinations, and about the hobbies working-class folks like my parents rarely get to explore.
Last week, Mom and Dad visited D.C., my new home, for the first time. As we strolled down the National Mall for a few hours, they snapped dozens of pictures, asked questions about the capital and told me all about their time in Mexico. We also took selfies, people-watched and ate paletas under the Washington Monument.
I’m grateful to get to see the world through their eyes. Their joy and curiosity are infectious, filled with the multitudes and contradictions that immigrants often simultaneously hold. But mostly, I’m proud of their willingness to keep excavating the versions of themselves they couldn’t afford to be in the past. I loved them as janitors and quite like them as performers, readers, and tourists too.