Slanted House (Part III, Illegal immigrant issue)

I'm glad my wife wasn't home to see me track muck from the crawl space door under the stairs to the shower.  If so she'd not have been very happy about it at all. I was under the floor for a good few hours. Japanese houses aren't built on a slab like ones in California are. Walls sit on concrete stem walls about 18" high in these parts. I was down under my in-law's floor when rebuilding their kitchen floor last summer. Their home's much older'n this'n were in, it was dust as fine as flour down there I entered sweating like a race horse and emerged covered in guck.  Here there's rough concrete between the stem walls but the guys who built this house left a lot of wood shavings which has since mixed with a lot of dust down there. Out of sight out of mind isn't just a California carpenter thing apparently. I'm okay with it though so under the floor I went with my saw, hammer and nails and took my wife's new vacuum cleaner in a feeble attempt to make a clean, dust free path to the underside of the living room floor.

Towards the end of Slanted House Part II I wrote of the new fangled adjustable metal posts they replaced the original cypress ones with after getting our house all up to level. I didn't like them then and I like them even less now. Thus my feeling all the better after cutting, rebuilding and re-bracing  the original cypress posts alongside the new cheesy adjustable metal ones. It'll take a helluva quake to buckle that floor now! I figured they got the floor all level; no more need to adjust but man those metal ones looked cheap I just hadta beef it up for earthquakes.

August 2018 - from top to bottom; before, during and after rebuilding and bracing subfloor posts

What a bloody mess I was when I exited that crawlspace door after a few hours under that floor though. It wasn't as bad as that time under my in-laws' floor but still, I was soaked in sweat and caked with dust and sawdust. Funny thing about being like that though is I don't mind it a bit. Kind of like it even. It feeds into some primitive part of my nature.  I liked too how being in that condition got me to thinking of how I'd often return home from work in such a condition back in my ol California framing days. Thinking that got me to thinking about Alfonso, and the human mind being what it is--one thought leading to myriad others-- led to me thinking about immigration then. Immigration of the do it yourself variety to be more exact. Stay with me now you'll see where this is going.

After my first few years of framing houses, say five or six or so I guess, I settled in with one contractor and stayed with that guy till the end of my framing days. Azevedo Construction it was. Hell of a guy ol Lou.  He was a good dude to work for, an immigrant to the States himself with, like most California framing crews, more'n a few Mexicans of varying immigration status on the crew at any given time. One of them was the guy who I ended up partnering with more often'n not. That was Alfonso.

"Dirty Mexicans"
You ever hear someone say that? I'm guessing the answer is yes if you grew up white in central California like I did. Hell I used to say it when growing up. It was a white kid thing to say after all, at least when talking with other white kids, or friends, or relatives. "Dirty Ni##ers". "Dirty Mexicans!" I don't much remember berating "illegals" back then but seems they're topping the pariah charts now based on what I see online from where I sit here in Japan. It never used to bother me--saying racial slurs or putting down people based on stereotypes. I never gave it much thought, at least not till my world started expanding. I don't know if it's due to learning the history of immigration to the US, if it's seeing it from afar, more life experience, a bit more moral maturity, increased compassion or what, but something's got me to seeing it in a different light nowadays.  So when I see or read anything putting down "illegals" or just hard hearted memes about immigration to the US now it makes me wish the people spouting it could spend a day with Alfonso.

It's been years since I've seen him. His immigration status was already legal by the time we'd me but his pre-legal status was still fresh enough in his mind to tell tales of what life was like before he became a US citizen. My god how riveting those tales he'd tell as we sat on our ice chests eating lunch together were. I always sat with the Mexican crew because, duh! they had the best food! And Tapitio. Man that's good stuff! Goes great on everything from burritos to the white guy's ham sandwich.  But man the tales those guys would tell! Running like hell in the dead of night, hiding behind something in a field  while still in earshot of "la migra". "They had fuk'n dogs Casey!".  My heartbeat would speed up as they talked. I was right there with them in one sense and in another still couldn't even imagine.  The talk was mostly in Spanish save for Alfonso or Ray or a few others who'd try to speak English. When all Spanish I'd just sit and eat picking up a word or phrase here or there till they all started laughing, then I'd ask Alfonsno "What'd they say", to which he'd always reply "Dey're talk'n bout your mother Casey".  More laughter and me cussing them. Good times.
Sometimes a laborer would stop coming to work. Sometimes for a month, other times never to return again. I never met a one of them I didn't like or who didn't work his ass off.

Although still voting Republican at the time I was no more a Fox viewer then than I am now. Actually that was in the pre-Fox help ya hate undocumented workers from Mexico propaganda era I think. I'm glad for that. I never thought the lesser of him or any of those guys for having snuck into the US to find better paying work. If anything I empathized enough even back then to imagine I'd do the same if in their shoes. Their reasons for doing it were the same. Most common was to help support family. I can respect that. Hell I admired  Alfonso for how he'd send a big chunk of his weekly paycheck to help family in Mexico, all the while I was spending a good part of mine on beer. Or worse.

Here's the funny thing about "Dirty Mexicans" though. Here's the image that comes to my mind every time I see something about "illegals" nowadays. At the end of an eight hour day of framing, no matter if we were plating, stacking roof, hanging facia, building a coffered ceiling, doing pick up or up in the attic of an older home doing some kind of remodel, no matter what kind of work we'd done I'd be a bloody mess just like I was after coming out from three hours under my living room floor.  Then there was Alfonso, clean as he was when we were rolling out cords at 6:00 .a.m.  I shit you not. The guy did not get dirty.  Me filthy. Sawdust everywhere. Crusty dusty snot caked boogers in my nose, dirty legs began where dirty shorts ended and just a wretched mess. I'd ask him time and time again "Dude, how do you stay so clean?" To which he'd reply
(cue hard Spanish accent)
"I work widt my hans Casey, not my body."
We'd go back and forth me saying it's impossible to stay that clean and work hard, throwing in  "lazy Mexican" at times (jokingly of course) and him laughing and saying I'm a dirty guero or something to that effect.
No offense was ever taken on either of our parts.
Mere weeks into our years of framing together we'd gone from coworkers to friends.

So what if he was "illegal" once?  (Personally I don't believe a person can be "illegal". Their immigration status yes, but you can't be an illegal person.) The term is all jacked up and racist. That and the fact that, for reasons maybe I'll go into another day, I myself have lived in a foreign land with illegal immigration status. True story. It went on for way longer than expected. It gave rise to a lot of fear. It was all my fault--none to blame but me. Is stayed honest through it all which, along with winning the birth lottery--born American, white, middle class, and most of all being married to a Japanese citizen who I just happened to have impregnated by the time Japanese immigration knew of my expired visa status--all of that helped bring it to a favorable conclusion for me. Oh yeah, and I've remained sober since the event that led to me putting myself in that position. That's helped too! It was what it was though, so if there's such a thing as "illegals" then due to that experience I've gotta be counted among their ranks.

My aversion to people demonizing their fellow earthly travelers--poor people trying to enter the USA--must at least in part be a result of these experiences. Seeing people all be cast in the same lot, all defined with a single derogatory term "illegals", just rubs me the wrong way.  It's ignorant and it's lazy. It's putting a black and white filter on a complicated multicolored issue that could never be solved with something as simple as building a wall or deporting everyone. And even if it was; Where's the compassion?  I don't know if it was my Christian upbringing or these life experiences or what, but whenever I see images or read stories of people fleeing a war torn or dangerous or impoverished country and trying to enter a safer one I can't help but wonder what I'd do if in the same situation. If I couldn't feed my kids or felt they were in danger would I flee the country and enter another one illegally? Would I risk it if I thought doing so would give my kids a better shot at life? You're damned right I would. And if honest with yourself I bet you would too.

There's that and I can't for the life of me imagine Jesus saying "Yeah people have gotta enter countries legally; my "whatever you did for the least of these" doesn't apply to the ones who don't.   Nah, if anything I think their "illegal" status puts them a little closer to last, which in Christ's book makes them that much closer to first last time I checked. It puts them far nearer to his Kingdom than you or I as we sit in our heated homes with extra clothes to wear and extra food in the cupboards.

You get my point.
Compassion.
The memes and cold hearted shit I see on Facebook and elsewhere are utterly lacking in it.

Anyhow, back to my subfloor.  A good chunk of the girders under the floor are now supported by both new adjustable metal posts and the old cypress ones. It's all braced together--a good 7' by 7' square, a 3 post by three post area of nine posts total. In time I'll make my way back down there to put in a few more, and when I do I'll probably return to surface covered in dust. Then as now as before I'll smile as I imagine Alfonso's voice in my mind; "I work wit my hands Casey, not my body." The dude was a helluva carpenter, hard ass worker and then some, good son to his family back in Mexico for sure and by far the cleanest dude I ever framed with--definitely not the kind of guy Fox would allow on their so-called news to demonize brown people who entered the US from Mexico.

I'm still here in Japan, legally, like I suspect Alfonsno is still in California, legally.
Funny too if not ironic that we, two guys who crossed paths and shared more than a few moments in this life--two guys now living in nations other than the ones we were born into, are now both small business owners as well. Me a small English school in Japan, him a Mexican meat market in California. Or at least he still was the last time I heard.  Both of us paying taxes, adding to the economy, helping neighbors, and on and on. I think we're more the rule than the exception, guys like him and me. People don't go to all the trouble of moving or migrating or even sneaking into a foreign country to steal your hubcaps or murder your cat or worse. The vast majority of humans are just looking for a better life just like your and my ancestors did. Just like people have done and will continue doing for as long as the earth remains peopled.

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January 2019 addendum:  I first wrote this last summer and just came back to it. All the FB posts and stories online about the US government being shut down over a wall that Trump promised Mexico would pay for got me to thinking about it again so returned to it to whittle it down a bit (it still needs so much more editing that time just doesn't allow). But oh well here it is. It's a story of my subfloor, my old framing days, some immigrants I know or knew and even a teaser into how I was once an "illegal" myself.  But we're all earthlings, and in one to 3 thousand years from now if our species has found a way to stick around with the rats and crows and cockroaches then I think that'll be the main thing.

So I guess all of the above was just somewhat of a roundabout plea for compassion from Team Earthling!
 It's so utterly lacking in much of the quick fix wall em off immigration memes it seems.
What if that was me and my kids? What if it was you and yours?

What if it was...

Compassion

Thank you Joseph Campbell

I must've picked up Transformations of Myth Through Time in the basement of The Franciscan chapel in Roppongi. They used to have quite a selection of used books that expats leaving Japan would drop off there. They'd sell for 200 yen hardcover and 100 yen paperback; it was a great place to find used books in Japan and I often meet with friends and friends of friends and friends of a mutual friend Bill W there, so I'd always check out the used books in the stairwell.  A few years ago Tokyo FD made them move them all out of the stairwell so they just stopped taking books. I was bummed about that but grateful for all the good books I found there, a good 35% of my little library here came from there.

Anyhow so I must've had that book here for years then one day guess it was just time I leafed through it for the umpteenth time and something just spoke to me. On the next trip to Tokyo I got another Joseph Campbell book, THOU ART THAT Transforming Religious Metaphor and Damn! Yeah, it was time.  A genuine when the student is ready the teacher appears kind of thing. 

That's all a few years ago now. Since then the Joseph Campbell section in my home library has grown to eleven or 12 books. I'm on the first book of working my way through THE MASKS OF GOD.  I started on Occidental Mythology and give it a double thumbs up at 3/4 of the way through.  Actually as I sit and type this I'm on my way to Tokyo to meet with aforementioned friends and friends of friends and friends of Bill W, so I'm planning on stopping by Kinokuniya in Shinjuku to pick up another of the MASKS OF GOD books. But before I do I wanted to start a Joseph Campbell favorite quotes page. So here it is a quick copy and paste of some favorites in my journal for starters and I'll add more later...

"Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you’re alive and it’s spectacular."

"My favorite definition of mythology: other people's religion. My favorite definition of religion: misunderstanding of mythology."

"Mythology, properly understood as metaphor, will guide you to the recognition of your tiger face. But then how are you going to live with these goats?

Well, Jesus had something to say about this problem. In Matthew 7 he said, “Do not cast your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet and turn and tear you.” 

..

“You wear the outer garment of the law, behave as everyone else and wear the inner garment of the mystic way. Jesus also said that when you pray, you should go into your own room and close the door. When you go out, brush your hair. Don’t let them know. Otherwise, you’ll be a kook, something phony.

So that has to do with not letting people know where you are. But then comes the second problem: how do you live with these people? Do you know the answer? You know that they are all tigers. And you live with that aspect of their nature, and perhaps in your art you can let them knkow that they are tigers. 

And that’s the revelation then. And so this brings us to the final formula of the Bodhisattava way, the way of one who is grounded in eternity and moving in the field of time. The field of time is the field of sorrow. “All live is sorrowful.” And it is. If you try to correct the sorrows, all you do is shift them somewhere else. Life is sorrowful. How do you live with that? You realize the eternal within yourself. You disengage, and yet, reengage. You—and here’s the beautiful formula—“participate with joy in the sorrows of the world.” you play the game. It hurts, but you know that you have found the place that is transcendent of injury and fulfillments. You are there, and that’s it.” 

pp 119-120 of Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion

"As Schopenhauer says, when you look back on your life, it looks as though it were a plot, but when you are into it, it's a mess: just one surprise after another. Then, later, you see it was perfect. So, I have a theory that if you are on your own path things are going to come to you. Since it's your own path, and no one has ever been on it before, there's no precedent, so everything that happens is a surprise and is timely."
pg. 63 of Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion

"One way to deprive yourself of an experience is indeed to expect it. Another is to have a name for it before you have the experience. Carl Jung said that one of the functions of religion is to protect us against the religious experience. That is because in formal religion, it is all concretized and formulated. But, by its nature, such an experience is one that only you can have."

THOU ART THAT  pg 13



The best thing one can do with the Bible is to read it spiritually rather than historically. Read the Bible in your own way, and take the message because it says something special to each reader, based on his or her own experience. The gift of God comes in your own terms. God, pure and in Himself, is too much. Carl Jung said 'Religion is a system to defend us against the experience of God.' It may be a species of impudence to think that the way you understand God is the way God is."


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 I just sat down to leaf through some books and add a few more quotes to this and good gosh I'd better figure out a system first--too many dog-eared pages and highlighted sections I don't know where to start!   The above two are ones with double dog eared pages and notes in the margin though so there's two more for now.  The latter one there just has a single note in the margin.  It is: "YES!" If there's one thing I've learned in this life it's this. Nobody knows what God is. And if nobody knows what it, or capital "I" if you prefer "It" is, then they certainly don't know which sports team is Her favorite or which politician She wants to win an election.  (if you didn't like my use of the feminine pronouns for God there then I'm guessing you strongly disagree. ha ha ha ) but I digress... 
 Or as Campbell tells of how his friend explains it:

"My friend Heinrich Zimmer of years ago used to say, "The best things can't be told," because they transcend thought. "The second best are misunderstood," because those are the thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which can't be thought about, and one gets stuck in the thoughts."The third best are what we talk about.”