This the story of Rosa Delgado
One more time, Rosa Delgado checked herself in the bathroom mirror.
She would never use much make-up; her swarthy skin colour made that superfluous. Just a dab of foundation, and a little lipstick. She checked her hair: jet black, tightly curled. Yes, all neat and in order.
She checked her watch. It was six twenty in the morning.?Time to leave for work. Rosa finished in the bathroom, bumping into her five-year-old son in the hall.
‘Are you getting ready for school, Pedro?’ she asked the boy, moving out of the way so one of the other house occupants could get into the bathroom.?
He was still dressed in a pair of Dr Strange pyjamas. ‘Tia Isabella is making me breakfast first.’
‘Okay,’ said Rosa, ruffling his hair, and leading him into the kitchen, where his Tia Isabella was making him some eggs.?Isabella was not a real aunt; just a close friend of Rosa’s who lived in the same house.
‘Here you are, Pedro,’ Isabella called out. ‘Your eggs are ready.’
Isabella spoke to Pedro in Spanish. Rosa shook her head.
‘No, no, Isabella. In English. He needs to learn English here.’
Isabella shook her head and tutted, as she passed Rosa another plate of eggs. In Spanish, she said, ‘You don’t need to speak English to live here.’?Isabella had lived in Los Angeles for nearly ten years. She could speak English to a degree. Not fluently, but she could get by. However, she stubbornly insisted on using her mother tongue as much and as often as possible.
‘But I want him to do more than live here, more than just get by here,’ said Rosa. ‘I want him to get on.’
Isabella pulled a face and began washing the skillet. That was a sure sign the conversation was over, and it was an argument she and Rosa had had many times. Always good naturedly; deep down, Isabella knew Rosa was right. It was just so hard to let go of some things.
Six forty-five. Rosa stood and kissed Pedro on the top of his head.
‘I have to go now. Be a good boy for Tia Isabella.’
‘He always is,’ Isabella said in Spanish. ‘We’re going to the market later, so I can make tamales for dinner.’
‘I can call in at the store on the way home and pick some up,’ Rosa replied in English.
Isabella pulled a face. She spoke in Spanish.
‘He’s not going to eat frozen tamales, heated up in the microwave. Not good for him.’
‘All right,’ said Rosa, reverting to Spanish. ‘Thank you.’ She embraced Isabella and kissed Pedro one more time.
‘Bye, mama,’ he said.
Rosa, Isabella, and Pedro lived in a large house in East Los Angeles, which they shared with two other Mexican families. For the last six months, Rosa had worked in a factory in LA’s Fashion District. This necessitated a short walk down to Whittier Boulevard, where she would catch the 66 bus Downtown.?She would alight at the stop at Ninth and Maple, then walk for five minutes to reach her place of work.
Rosa would work either on the sewing machines, or on the machines which would cut the cloth to the numerous templates they had, for tee shirts of different sizes and styles. She worked as a member of a group of thirty, all women, all non-indigenous.?She preferred working on the cutting machine, as it was more interesting and less boring than the sewing machines.?However, it did require more care, as making an error meant wasting material, the cost of which was deducted from the worker’s pay.
She hoped that one day she would be moved to work on the printing machines. She would never be able to do what the two men did, and create the logos and pictures which adorned the fronts of the shirts, but she envied the three women who operated the printing machines.
Printed on the tee shirts she had sewn together would be a variety of images.?Maybe a phrase, sometimes obscene; maybe a picture. Maybe just a logo or a word or two. Generally they would be LA-centric, Southern California perhaps. Never any places such as Disneyland or any of the studios. The risk to her employer of being taken to court for copyright infringement was too great, and they would not pay the massive fee for a licence. She had heard the men talk about getting tee shirts done in preparation for the 2028 Olympic Games.
The shirts would then be moved to one of the many stores down below, intended primarily for the many tourists who scoured the one hundred blocks of the Fashion District.
Rosa had worked there since her arrival in the city with Pedro, after a long and difficult, sometimes dangerous, journey.?Only now she was beginning to get settled. She hoped it would be permanent.
She got off the bus at the stop on East Twenty-third and South San Pedro Streets, further away than normal, but she wanted to pick something up at one of the many stores for her lunch. She purchased a carne asada burrito, slipped the food, hot, but wrapped in foil, into her backpack, and carried on along Twenty-third. She was at the back of a group of six people, probably all headed to work.
Rosa turned as she heard a mix of sounds: a vehicle engine, some shouting…
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