EPT
First Day on the Job
I wasn't a particularly aware kid regarding things like race. Perhaps that's a function of being a multiracial dude, or maybe it's because I grew up in a wealthy enough area I didn't deal with a lot of explicit racism. Whatever the case was, it wasn't until I was about 7 or 8 that I realized that it was unusual that the vast majority of my dad's friends are black. Naturally, I asked him why he had so many black friends (in a tone-deaf way, I'm sure, since I was a just a kid). I remember the story he told me in response.
After finishing his geology degree in Germany, my dad moved to the United States, hoping to get a job and meet beautiful women (he had fallen in love once with an American student in his college days, but that only lasted as long as the semester did). However, once he was here in the US, he had to get a job, and with his classroom-only knowledge of English and limited contacts, he was feeling pretty out-of-luck. It wasn't until he came by a construction site that was looking for workers that he was able to find a job and keep his visa.
Part of being an engineering student at a Technische Hochschule meant spending one summer working as a laborer on a construction project. He had experience, knew the tools, and was basically qualified to do work. He walked onto the site and somehow talked himself a job building an office building. The next day, he showed up for work and the company would pay him, and more importantly help him stay in the country
The work was hard, but it was the only work he could get and it was work he knew how to do. As midday arrived, though, my dad got pretty confused. All the workers were on break, and were eating in two groups: the whites were sitting together in one area, and the blacks were sitting together in another area. My dad wasn't white, but he also wasn't black. On government forms later in his life, he and other Persians would have to list their nationality as "Caucasian" since the term included those of Middle Eastern descent-- but that doesn't make you white.
My dad evaluated the two groups of people, neither of which would be the same race as himself, and sat with the blacks. He introduced himself, but his name was too foreign for a tongue that's spoken English for a lifetime, and quickly earned the nickname "Mark" instead. Though he was worried about it, there was no awkwardness from his new friends. Those men remain his friends to this day, as he never moved away from Oakland for the rest of his life.
Hearing this, I asked him: "why did you choose to sit with the black guys rather than the white guys? Was it because you weren't white?"
He responded, "well, it wasn't anything that complicated. I looked at the two groups, and the white dudes were scowling and looked like they were having a terrible time. The black guys, though, were laughing and telling jokes to each other. I knew who I wanted to sit with."
I don't really know what this whole blog post is about. I guess my dad was an interesting guy, and the experience for immigrant Persians is weird in a country that's mostly defined by concepts of White and Black.
Blogs don't need to have a purpose to be entertaining and interesting!
