"The important thing is to work."
—Betty Marin interviewed Juan Sop at PSU’s Millar Library in Portland, Oregon on February 20, 2012.
I am from Guatemala.
And I came here, well, like everyone else: seeking a better life, and to give my future family a more dignified life, because I’m single, I’m not a married man.
When I left, I didn’t imagine how it would be. I left just like that, without knowing what I was going to, without knowing if I would have any luck. But everything that has hapenned to me, I’m happy about it.
So you came here without a good sense of how things would be...
Yes, right. Because when I was in Guatemala, I worked only in the fields. The fields, the fields, the fields. But I came here without having an idea of what type of work I was going to do. Whatever came to me, just like how we do as day laborers, take whatever comes. The important thing is to work.
What is day-laborer?
It is a person that does not have a job, someone who does not have a stable job, who works for periods at a time, a day, two days, a week, or maybe a month. And a day laborer lives day to day, basically he does not have a stable job.
The day laborer center is a space that the organization Voz, opened. The reasons were that in the year 2000 the police would regularly kick out fellow laborers from Ankeny and Burnside.There was a lot of discrimination and racism. Discrimination came from the police, and the discrimination and racism was on those that would hang out there. Everyone thought they were delincuents or that they sold drugs or something, but it was not like that. And that’s why the organization VOZ said: Well we have to do something about it, [to] all of the police and what they are doing to our fellow workers. And that’s why they created this center. They went to talk with the mayor from here, and they talked and talked for a really long time until they made it happen. The creation of the Day Laborer Center. And that’s why we’re there.
My work at the center started when I lost my job and I came to the center and I saw that it was somewhat better there, than standing on the street corners. And I liked it a lot. And after that, there at the center I got the job with Miss Delta, where I started as a dishwasher. And that’s why I like to spend time there, because it’s where I’ve been able to get the jobs that I’ve had. It’s kind of like a way to repay the center for the jobs that I’ve had and have gone well for me.
Before the jobs that I’ve had at restaurants, I was working in construction. And that went well too, the construction work, and I would tell myself then, I’ll stay right here. But there were other opportunities and I tried them out, and they’ve gone well for me.
And so you imagined that you would work only in...?
Just in construction. Because I liked it. I liked working outdoors. I didn’t like working inside, feeling locked up, like in a restaurant for example. Now working there, I see that like in construction there is a lot of responsibility, if you make a mistake you have to do it again, and waste those materials. And it’s exactly the same way in restaurants: if you make a mistake, you waste that, and you have to use new ingredients. And that’s why I like it.
—Betty Marin interviewed Juan Sop at PSU’s Millar Library in Portland, Oregon on February 20, 2012. Translation also by Betty Marin.
