Three Keys Read online

  “They want to know if you can write a letter to the Border Patrol. An anonymous letter,” Lupe translated. “Asking them to look for their friend. They walked for days in the scorching Sonoran desert. And it got so hot that unfortunately, their friend …” She stopped translating and wiped a tear from her cheek.

  “Their friend what?” I asked, the ink from my pen pooling on my forefinger and thumb.

  Lupe put a hand over her mouth and shook her head. Mrs. Q and Mrs. T stepped in. “I’ll write it,” Mrs. T volunteered. With that, she turned to the immigrants and in her gentlest, kindest teacher voice introduced herself. “I’m Mrs. T.…”

  “And I’m Mrs. Q,” Mrs. Q chimed in. “And today we’re going to talk about the DMV.”

  Later, after class, I found Lupe lingering in the back of my mom’s math class.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  Lupe nodded. I asked her if she was sad because of what the Mexican auntie and uncle said, and she nodded without looking up. I put a hand on her back. In the pale lamplight, I thought about my own journey to America and how different it was compared to walking across the scorching desert. Still, it was scary and full of uncertainty.

  “I’m so sorry about their friend,” I said to Lupe. I’d heard about border-crossing tragedies on the news, but lately I really wondered whether it was worth it, especially considering the way people were treated once they got here. “And those girls in the bathroom …”

  “They were pretty bad,” Lupe agreed. Then she rubbed her eyes and turned to me, sitting up as straight as she could. “But people are going to think what they’re going to think. You just have to ignore them and keep doing your thing.”

  I nodded. “I will if you will.”

  On Saturday my mom woke me up bright and early. She sat down on my bed with a pair of scissors in one hand and a bowl in the other.

  “Time for a haircut, Mia!”

  I groaned. “Does it have to be today?”

  “C’mon, you want to look extra good when we go out with all your dad’s friends tonight, don’t you?”

  I glanced hesitantly at the bowl. At the start of every school year, my parents would put a bowl over my head and cut the hair around it. They considered this to be basically the same as a professional haircut. I considered it the same as getting sheared—I always came out looking like an alpaca, with bits of hair sticking out all over the place.

  “Please, this year, can I go to a real barber?” I sat up and begged.

  Mom looked all offended. “I am a real barber,” she insisted, snipping the air with her scissors as if to demonstrate.

  My dad walked in, nodding. “Going to a real barber is too wasteful,” he said. He got his own bowl haircut every other month. “And besides, it’ll only take ten minutes.”

  I walked over to the mirror and gazed at my head of wild, untamed hair. Sure, it looked a bit like a mop, but did she have to chop it all off and make me look like a mushroom again?

  “Can we just skip this year?” I asked.

  My mom shook her head. “Long hair wastes shampoo,” she said.

  “I’ll only wash my roots! And I’ll keep it up in a ponytail, so it doesn’t get in my face,” I promised.

  My mom put a finger to her chin and studied my face as though it were a flower arrangement. Finally, she sighed.

  “Fine, we’ll just do the bangs.”

  YES!

  I took the bowl from her and put it over my forehead. “Just my bangs!”

  As my mom put her scissors to my hair, I closed my eyes, hoping I wouldn’t come out looking like a chopped salad.

  Later that night, I was feeling my newly cropped bangs with my fingers as we all piled into the car to go out to dinner with my dad’s buddies, the immigrant investors. My dad had been looking forward to this dinner all week, and Hank had volunteered to man the front desk so we could all go. We were meeting at Buffet Paradise, an all-you-can-eat restaurant.

  “Remember, when we get there, don’t fill up on bread or rice,” my dad advised from the driver’s seat. When it came to buffets, my dad had more strategy than an army general. “Go straight for the crab legs and shrimp!”

  “Or the ribs!” my mom added.

  I rubbed my hands together. We hadn’t eaten all day in preparation for the big meal.

  When we arrived, a bunch of my dad’s friends were already there, helping themselves to the slow-roasted beef tips, skipping the mashed potatoes. Like us, they had dressed strategically, in loose pants and big shirts.

  My dad took a seat at the head of the table and started handing out checks to all his friends, their share of the motel profits that month. Dad was always enormously proud when he was handing out checks to his friends, his face shining like a steamed bun. And he should be. So many of them had put their hard-earned money into the Calivista and were counting on their portion of the profits.

  “You know what we’re going to do with this money?” Auntie Ling asked. “We’re going to put it toward a second car!”

  “Ooooooh!” My mom scooted over closer to Auntie Ling to get all the details—what make and model, what color. I knew she’d been itching to get one too, but my dad said it was too expensive.

  Uncle Zhang, who was now parking cars over in Burbank, said in between bites, “With my cut, I’m going to study for a better job!”

  My dad looked up from his crab leg. “What are you thinking of studying?” he asked.

  “I was gonna try to take the electrical technician exam.” Like my mom, Uncle Zhang was an engineer back in China. I smiled as he told us his plans. He had come such a long way from being trapped in the basement of his employer’s house last year, working day and night. He pointed a rib at my mom.

  “Ying, you should do it too!” Uncle Zhang exclaimed. “We could do it together!”

  My mom turned to my dad, and they shared a look. “Can’t,” she said with a slight shake of her head. “Too busy cleaning rooms.”

  All around the table, the aunties and uncles put down their food and held up their drinks. “And we appreciate it,” they said, toasting my parents. My parents smiled.

  As everyone got up to get more food, I thought about my mom’s answer. Was she not happy cleaning rooms? Did she want to do something else instead? But we finally owned the motel, and business was going so well!

  When I looked up, the adults were back with their third plates and talking about Proposition 187, the law that Governor Wilson wanted to pass. That’s what all the ads were for. If it passed, Prop 187 would kick undocumented children out of California schools, making it illegal for them to get an education or use public services like hospitals.

  “Such a shame. My cousin’s kid is going to be affected,” Auntie Ling said. “They just got here from Changsha.”

  “I myself almost became undocumented,” Uncle Zhang said, shaking his head. “If it weren’t for Mia, I wouldn’t have gotten my passport back from my employer on time to renew my visa.” He reached out and patted my hand. I smiled.

  “But isn’t the legislation mostly targeting Mexicans?” Uncle Fung asked.

  “We immigrants are all in the same boat,” my dad reminded his friends. “Don’t let them divide and conquer us. If this law passes, it’s bad for all of us.”

  The aunties and uncles all nodded at my dad’s words as they ate. When at last I could feel my pants about to pop, my dad got up and settled the bill before any of his friends could protest. I looked to my mom, whose eyes were moving around the table, her lips silently counting as she did the math of how much the meal cost. My dad didn’t need to do the math. Pride filled me up as my dad paid, even more than the crab legs did.

  On the way home, my mother sat next to me in the back of the car and asked my dad how much the bill was.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, batting away her concern with a hand. “It was good to see everyone, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know why you always have to pay for everyone.”
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  “Of course we have to pay,” Dad said. “We’re Chinese, that’s what we do.” He glanced at my mom in the rearview mirror. “What, did you want us to split it?” He uttered the word split like it was a curse word.

  “No, but there are things I’d like to be able to buy for us.”

  “Like what?”

  My mom shrugged. “Like a second car?”

  “A second car? But we’re always at the motel!” He turned around and looked at my mom. “Do you have any idea how much a second car costs?”

  “We could buy it on a credit card!” I offered. Now that we had a card machine, I got to see for myself the magic of these little cards. All you had to do is swipe, sign, and boom. All paid!

  My mom’s eyes lit up. “That’s a great idea! We should get a credit card!”

  “No, no, no, that’s a terrible idea,” Dad vetoed. “We’re not spending money before we have it. That’s such an American thing to do.”

  “No, but we will pay for twenty people’s dinner,” my mom muttered under her breath.

  The topic of credit cards was put on hold for the rest of the car ride. When we got back to the motel, my parents thanked Hank for covering the desk.

  “Hey, Hank, what do you think of credit cards?” my mom asked.

  Hank hopped off the stool and slapped a hand on our credit card machine. “Did you know you get a ton of miles on those things?”

  “What are miles?” I asked Hank.

  Hank explained that most credit cards reward you for using them to buy stuff by giving you free airplane miles, so you can fly to places and get a vacation for free. I poked my dad. Free vacation. I liked the sound of that.

  “Yeah, but only if you spend enough money, which we’re not going to,” my dad replied.

  “You never know. I’m applying for one myself,” Hank informed us. He tilted his head and made a dreamy face. “Can you see me frolicking around the Bahamas?”

  I giggled. I could totally see that.

  Later, I found my mom in the laundry room, except she wasn’t doing any laundry or folding towels. She was bent over on the small stool filling out a bunch of papers.

  “Mom, why are you doing that in here?” The laundry room was so damp and sweaty, you could start growing bean sprouts on your nose if you stayed in there too long.

  My mom jerked up from the papers, surprised and slightly embarrassed. “You scared me.”

  I looked down at the papers. They were math worksheets for her students, hand drawn and hand copied. There was even a line where she had written Name:___________ on the top, like a real teacher. I smiled. Then I noticed another piece of paper beside the stack of math papers. Across the top it read APPLICATION FOR CREDIT CARD.

  “Hank had an extra copy,” my mom explained. “It can’t hurt to apply, right?”

  “Wow,” I said, impressed. “But what about Dad and not spending money we don’t have?”

  My mom gave me a look. “You think with your mom’s eye for numbers, we’re gonna get too carried away?” she asked with a wink.

  I smiled again. Fair enough. I pointed at all her math worksheets and asked her how that was going.

  “Good,” she said. “Some of the students are getting it. You know who’s really good at math? Lupe.”

  “Really?” I asked. I always figured Lupe to be more of an art person. She drew such breathtaking landscapes.

  My mom nodded. “But I need to buy some calculators and a real whiteboard if I’m going to teach more complicated stuff,” she said. She glanced down at her credit card application and sighed. “I wish I had fewer rooms to clean and more time to do math.” Her eyes shifted to the mountain of dirty towels next to her. Every day, there was a new tower.

  “Would you want to go for your engineering exam or a technician’s exam like Uncle Zhang?” I asked, thinking about what she’d said at dinner.

  My mom thought long and hard. “No,” she finally decided. “Because then I wouldn’t be able to see you all the time.”

  I smiled at the gray tile floor. I wasn’t sure if she really meant that or if she was just saying that to make me (and her) feel better. But either way, I felt relieved.

  Softly, I told my mom about what the girls in the bathroom said yesterday.

  “And what do you think it means to have an accent?” my mom asked.

  “I don’t know,” I muttered. Something I have now, but if I work really, really hard, maybe someday I’ll get rid of it?

  My mom put a hand over my knee. “Want to know what I think?”

  I met her eyes hesitantly, half afraid she’d come up with another devastating transportation analogy. Instead she said, “I think an accent is like your very own unique signature of all the places you’ve been. Like stamps in a passport. It has nothing to do with where you’re going.”

  I smiled at her in surprise. “Thanks, Mom.”

  She smiled too. “Speaking of signatures,” she said, lifting her pen.

  And that night, under the hot, roaring laundry machines, my mom signed her very first credit card application.

  On Sunday, the governor’s race was in the news again and at school the next day, Mrs. Welch was back at it, talking about Proposition 187. She had a small Wilson for Governor button on the lapel of her blazer, and she was petting it fondly, like it was a furry cat.

  “Why do they call it the Save Our State law?” Mrs. Welch asked.

  This time, I raised my hand.

  When she finally called on me, I said, “Because it’s goatscaping,” and sat up at my desk, proud to have said such a big word. Except I got it wrong.

  “Scapegoating,” Mrs. Welch corrected.

  A few kids in the back row snickered.

  I looked over at Lupe, who mouthed ignore them. But as Mrs. Welch continued talking about Prop 187, I could tell Lupe was having a hard time taking her own advice too.

  “It’s a matter of math, folks,” Mrs. Welch said. She started jotting down numbers. “There are four hundred thousand illegal immigrant children in our schools, and it costs us 1.5 billion dollars a year.” She recited the lines from the ad like a parrot.

  I shook my head. “But education is a basic human right—” I blurted out.

  Mrs. Welch snapped, “How many times have I asked you to raise your hand first, wait to be called on, and then speak?”

  I mumbled sorry, then raised my hand.

  “What is it?” Mrs. Welch asked.

  “How would you even know if a child is an ‘illegal’ immigrant?” I asked her.

  “I think it’s pretty obvious.”

  “Based on what?” I asked. My face got hot. “Their race?” My classmates’ heads yo-yoed back and forth from me and Mrs. Welch like it was a tennis match. Lupe kept shaking her head at me, like Just drop it! But I couldn’t. “See, that’s why Prop 187 is racist.”

  Mrs. Welch stopped stroking her button and pointed her finger at me. “Race has nothing to do with it,” she insisted. “Race isn’t even real!”

  Oh my God, I wanted to break a broom! I glanced over at Lupe but her head was crouched so low at her desk, her face was practically the same height as her pencil case. For the next forty-five minutes, as Mrs. Welch proceeded to explain that because race is not a biological fact, racism is not real, I sat stock-still at my desk.

  When the lunch bell finally rang, I walked numbly to the cafeteria and barely noticed when Jason ran up, excited.

  “My mom’s going to pick us up after school on Friday,” he said. “We can hang out and have dinner at my house!”

  I put my free school pizza down. “I don’t know about dinner.…” I said. The thought of dining with Mr. Yao was about as appealing as licking the inside of a toilet bowl.

  I guess Jason could tell what I was thinking, because he said, “Oh, c’mon, my dad’s not even going to be there. He’s been working a lot lately.” When I still didn’t say anything, he added quickly, “Fine, you don’t have to stay for dinner. But I’m going to prepare it anyway.�
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  “You mean your housekeeper’s going to prepare it,” Lupe corrected.

  “No. I’m going to prepare it.” Jason crossed his arms and looked at Lupe matter-of-factly. “I’m a really good cook now.”

  “Oh, really,” Lupe said, like she didn’t believe him.

  Jason nodded.

  “Since when?” Lupe raised an eyebrow.

  “Since the last time you knew anything about me,” Jason fired back. I burst out laughing, then stopped when I saw the look on Lupe’s face. I thought it was pretty funny. Lupe? Not so much.

  After school, Lupe and I walked back to the motel, talking about Mrs. Welch and kicking rocks with our feet.

  “Maybe we should do something,” I said to her. “With all this 187 stuff, we can’t be the only kids feeling bad.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Like start a club at school or something. Kids against 187.”

  Lupe stopped walking. “You want to start a club against 187 at school? You know what people will think?”

  That we’re brave? That we care? I thought, but I didn’t have a chance to say it because Lupe answered her own question.

  “That we’re illegal.”

  Oh.

  Lupe put a hand on my shoulder. “Look, I know it sucks. But things are going to get better. This ridiculous bill is not going to pass. In three months, this will all blow over and everything’s going to go back to normal.”

  I looked into Lupe’s sure, confident eyes and hoped she was right.

  Just as we got back to the motel, Hank’s car pulled into the lot.

  “I went down to the paper during my lunch break to talk about placing an ad,” Hank said, getting out of the car.

  “So how’d it go? Did you put in the ad?” I asked. He shook his head as my parents and the weeklies all came over.

  “What happened? Was it too expensive?” my mom asked.