Dinner with Jose

I learned that Trump was re-elected POTUS in November of 2024, while on a plane returning from an absolute dream trip to Portugal.

That news was not a highlight of the trip, just to be very clear.

Trump is a con artist of the most malevolent kind. I learned the lesson about con artists the hard way, when I was a young teeny bopper, while attending the Oregon State Fair. My Gramma T had given me several silver dollars with the admonition to never spend them, and therefore to never be broke. Problem was, it was in my pocket and all the money I had when I went to the Oregon State Fair that summer.

This is also a lesson about shame, by the way.

I don’t even remember the booth, or the game, or the day, or the weather, or what else I did that day, week, or month. But I do remember spending a silver dollar on the game, losing, then letting the barker convince me that the next try would result in a win, then the next, then the next. Finally, I reached into my pocket and realized that of the several silver dollars given to me by my Gramma T., only two remained.

I still have both of them.

When Trump was re-elected, I felt the same pit-in-the stomach visceral reaction I’d had when I realized that the carnival guy didn’t care one iota about a naïve, teenage girl who weighed 80 lbs. soaking wet, but only about the silver he could extract from my pocket. Trump is the same, with the additional fun fact that that teenage girls were not safe from him physically either; society still, doesn’t believe them. Shame on us.

Last night I trekked up to Hillsboro to accompany my Jose (as if he were ever someone else’s Jose) to his annual company Christmas party. Jose and I aren’t together anymore, so I haven’t been to this event in a couple years and that’s another essay, but he has earned and deserves every ounce of ‘what can I do for Jose. You’ll just have to take my word on that.

Here's the pivot back to the stomach-churning evil that is the Trump Administration, specifically DHS and ICE. Hello 1930s Germany, we are back, where ya been? We have ‘them’ to blame. And stuff.

Jose arrived here in the early 1980’s undocumented. His story is book worthy; an orphan by twelve, with a will to survive and a heart of gold unmatched by, well, anyone I have ever known. That’s a lot of people. I’m old. It’s a book I’m longing to write, actually, because I double dog dare anyone to have survived that journey, but he did. Heart. Intact.

 I digress.

Jose was granted a green card by REAGAN, you know that POTUS of Conservative Ideological Trickle-Down-Theory fame. That guy. Jose then earned his citizenship in the mid-2000s. I know this, because he used to ask me to help him read the questions and understand them, in between cleaning toilets, hauling garbage, and mopping floors at the hospital where I worked. He is that guy that turned over the operating room and cleaned it to sterile specs so you could have your gallbladder out safely.

He was so proud when he took that oath. What a travesty the Trump Administration has made of THAT. Insert angry emoji.

I have been worried about him and his 3-year-old grandson, and his two birthright citizen young adults. They all share the home that Jose literally worked his ass off to buy, (yes, his ass is quite small) and still does on the daily to maintain and support them all.

Last night he received his 10-year employment award. His job is to pick orders in a lumber yard and load the orders to the trucks via forklift. The entire room applauded vigorously. He is the only yard employee they’ve kept through the slow times. Ask yourself why that might be. He was the only Latino in the room. He is quiet and calm. He is deeply respected, but not very well paid. Imagine that.

ICE has been to his neighborhood. They have dragged off his neighbors: entire families whose biggest sin is trying to feed themselves and live in peace. The entire community of anyone looking slightly Latino is living in terror.

Yards in previously immaculate high-end neighborhoods are looking a little shabby for lack of care. The horror.

Stores are empty. He says WINCO is empty. Imagine the net effect on the economy of just that one retailer’s loss of sales. WINCO has a lease to pay, after all.

People are terrified of leaving their homes, they are carrying their passports and making sure someone knows where they are. They aren’t going to work; they aren’t going to church. Legal residents are leaving the country. Who can blame them? These are workers we need, by the way, since cleaning toilets, mopping floors, picking crops, taking out the garbage, and cleaning gutters aren’t the jobs Americans are lining up to do. Weird.

Meanwhile, those same ICE agents have a higher rate of documented crimes than the people they’re terrorizing. How abhorrently and disgustingly hypocritical can a nation get?

VERY as it turns out.

Does the Trump World care? No. They’re busy picking all the silver out of all the pockets, and hoping the dementia doesn’t advance until they’ve picked them clean.

Jose is a humble man with an inner core most of us could only wish to possess, and a smile to match. I have copies of his documents, and if he’s detained as so many others have been. What will I do about it?  Well. I guess I don’t even want to know, because I guarantee you, I will not be cowering in a corner.

I recognize a con artist when I see one, and apparently this is a lesson more Americans need to learn, along with some history.

Rinse, repeat. We are on repeat.

I told you so.