“Abuela!” shouted the middle-aged white man from across the street. No, that is not his grandmother he is calling out to, but rather 61-year-old Fiona Sanchez who is known as everyone’s abuela in this part of town. She stands on the corner of Kings Highway, in Brooklyn, everyday from 8 until 4, selling her magnificent flowers. Her flower stand is the brightest and liveliest one in the whole neighborhood. Her neon green apron, that she wears everyday, reads Fiona’s Flowers but the locals call the stand, Abuela’s shop. There is an ever present chair next to the shop, but Fiona can never be found sitting in it. She is always hustling and bustling about, talking with customers about their personal lives or teaching about the flowers. Every Friday she gives out a free flower to those that pass by, from the flower of the month collection.

When I first walked over to introduce myself Mrs. Sanchez was in the middle of multiple tasks, teaching someone about the details of one flower while wrapping flowers for another couple who kept smiling at each other. She introduced herself as Fiona Sanchez. She said, “Darling, you can call me Fiona or you can call me Abuela but please please don’t call me Mrs. Sanchez, that is my mother-in-law.”

Mrs. Sanchez has a small frame, standing at 4’ 10”, but her heart is enormous. Each flower Fiona sells comes with a card explaining where the flower is from and a few other facts about it. It also comes with a label that reads, “a flower a day keeps the doctor away.” She wraps each flower with a gentle touch and gives over the bouquet with such tender care. “Every person is different and has their own background and story. The same can be said about each flower,” said Fiona. “I know my flowers, the secret is knowing my customers,” she added in a whisper that only I could hear. “Abuela treats both the flowers and the customers like family,” said Mark, a regular, “she matches the flower to the person.”

Fiona had fallen in love with flowers back when she lived in a small town in Ecuador where wild flowers were abundant. She took out multiple books from her local library to learn about the many different species of plants. When Mrs. Sanchez came to America at the age of 23 she decided that, “this country is the land of opportunity, I will do what I always wanted to do, I will open this shop, sell my flowers, and teach about the uniqueness of each one.”

Twice a week her husband Marcos comes to help with her with her shop. Mrs. Sanchez has twin daughters who are both married and live in the neighborhood, as well as five beautiful grandchildren. The back of her shop is plastered with pictures of her family members and her customers. Its warm, welcoming, and full of life. “Flowers are a sign of life,” Fiona can often be heard saying, “a sign of springtime and of renewal. Every time I plant a flower and watch it grow, I feel like I’m a part of something bigger than myself. Spreading that feeling with others is what really keeps me going. I love what I do because it’s who I am.”

It was a normal Sunday afternoon for Mitchell Rumanov. He woke up, ate breakfast, went to the gym, and then went to work. Mitchell is 16 years old, and has been working at his parents’ bookstore for years. When he was a little boy, he used to run around the aisles playing with the various books and toys for sale there. As he got older, he began to help out more more. He graduated from sweeping the floor, to stocking shelves, to now working at the register. He learned to read at the age of four, and would often spend his time after school reading books rather than playing outside with friends. His parents had to keep him at the store because they could not afford day care, so he found refuge in books. His reading took him to faraway lands, and he imagined himself as a king or a knight or a dragon slayer.

“I never had many friends,” he recalled, “my friends were the characters in books I’d read.” Mitchell, or “Mitcheek,” as he is endearingly called by loved ones, came to the United States at the age of 4 with his family. When he first came he only spoke Russian, but he says that spending time in the bookstore helped him learn English. Interestingly enough, his time in the bookstore also helped him learn Russian better. Many of his friend to also came to the United States at a young age cannot read or write in Russian. “They can speak the language pretty well but cannot read it, which can be a real problem with older people,” he says. His mother taught him the Russian alphabet, and he would spend hours sitting in the aisles of the bookstore Reading in Russian. Eventually, he moved from Basic children’s books to complex novels. Mitchell attends James Madison High school, a 20-minute train ride away from his families’ book store on Brighton 4^th Street. In his advanced placement literature class, he is currently reading War and Peace. When he learned at this novel was originally published in Russian, he looked for it on the shelves of his bookstore, and began to tackle it. He said that, “It’s interesting simultaneously reading a book in both its original publisher language, my native language [Russian], and in English.”

An older couple walked into the store and greets Mitchell by name. The three of them engage in conversation in Russian, obviously being familiar with each other. When I asked him who they were, he said that they were old customers who watched him grow up. Every few weeks they stop by and purchase new books, both in Russian and English. After guiding the couple to new books they might enjoy and eventually completing their transaction, I asked Mitchell if he feels that working at the bookstore interferes with his schoolwork. “Honestly, yes I do,” he honestly told me, “I’m going to be a senior in the fall, and soon I’ll be leaving for college. I love my parents and I know I have to help them out, but I want to see what else is out there besides this bookstore.” Mitchell expressed dreams of becoming an English major, at a big state school as far away from Brooklyn as he could possibly get. He says that he plans on working as much as possible in the next 18 months before he leaves to help pay for college. The little dreamer in Mitcheek has grown into young man with goals. He no longer fantasizes about being the dragon-slayer, but knows that he has to work hard to reach his goal of going to college, and if that means long hours spent in the book store after school, so be it.

an employee in the store (Mitchell did not want to be photographed)

corner view 1

corner view 2

corner view 3

walking into the store

book racks (in russian)

a customer shopping

The smell of various nail polishes, acetone, glues, and disinfectants fills the room, but that did not keep Dina Menschikov from smiling and humming along with the song that played on the  T.V. in the corner. The little bell on the door ringed when a customer walked in and she’s immediately recognized by Ms. Menschikov, who’s seated behind a manicure table at the opposite end of the salon.

“Alina!” Ms. Menschikov greeted, as she added a thin layer of top coat to her current client’s nails. After sending the client to the drying station, she jerked her head in a “you’re next” motion. The two conversed in their native tongue, Russian.

Her hair was tied up in a semi-neat bun, a pair of eyeglasses resting atop her highlighted dark amber hair. Her mauve lipstick, fierce, penciled-in eyebrows, and thick mascara stole the attention away from her barefaced Asian coworkers.

Ms. Menschikov, a 38 year-old from Moscow, Russia, works at her cousins’ nail salon in Brighton Beach, where she is a nail technician and professional nail artist who specializes in 3D nail art. Aside from cutting and cleaning nails, she creates elaborate designs on her clients’ ten mini canvases. Or maybe just on two, depending on the client’s mood.

“Everything I do is freehand. No templates,” she said. From pop-up flowers and butterflies to 2D zebra stripes and abstract wispy lines, Ms. Menschikov can create nearly anything upon her clients’ requests. “Someone wanted me to paint Ariel, you know, from Little Mermaid? It was very hard to draw the face,” she recalled. “But I got a really nice tip.”

She began learning basic manicure techniques from her aunt, who owns a beauty salon in Moscow, where she grew up with her extended family. Her mother passed away when she was a child and her father left to marry another woman.

“I remember doing my two little cousins’ nails all the time for fun, and one day, my aunt told me I had a very steady hand, so I should go take nail classes,” said Ms. Menschikov, as she gently filed Alina’s nails from an ovular shape into a more rectangular shape. In Russia, she worked in a massage parlor. “But I was always very artistic, so I thought maybe doing nails was a good idea.”

About ten years ago, Ms. Menshchikov came to America with her four cousins, two of whom own Paris Nails, the salon Ms. Menshchikov presently works in. She spent her first two years in America waxing and trimming eyebrows for a living, until she obtained a license for nail grooming.

Brighton Beach is dotted with various nail salons, spas, and beauty clinics, so Ms. Menschikov tries her best to keep her clients from getting their nails done elsewhere. In fact, some of her most loyal clients come back every week, like Alina.

Alina commented, “I like her style,” while Ms. Menschikov brushed moistened acrylic power to Alina’s ring fingernail, gently tapping and molding the powder into a 3D flower. “I have never seen someone take their time like Dina.”

“I like to be very very precise. I’m a perfectionist,” Ms. Menschikov replied, putting on her glasses to aid her slight farsightedness. “Maybe that’s why I’m single,” she joked.

“Sometimes the customers get mad because I missed a spot and they want a discount,” she continued, a hint of anger in her voice. “These things take a lot of time and just one mistake makes it cheap for them. That’s not fair.”

Nevertheless, she resumed her humming after gluing three different-colored beads in the middle of each flower.

The finished product.

Bright lights shining down on Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadow – Corona Park during the US Open Tennis Tournament at the end of August. The August breeze catching the hair of Rafael Nadal as he prepares for first serve. He tosses the ball slightly to the left and swings with his powerful left-handed swing. The ball lands just wide of the service line, and the opponent Pablo Cuevas returns the ball back to Nadal. A shriek is heard by the line judge, indicating the end of the rally and the need for a second serve. Nadal takes the ball and hits it to the net, returning that ball to the man in the background, Mr. Jorgé Menendez, a ball boy at the US Open.

Jorgé Menendez (right)

Always in sprinters’ position, the ball boys of the US Open fight the hot sun and the demanding job of being able to react quickly enough to retrieve any ball that comes to their side of the net. Jorgé has been doing this for over three years, and it’s second nature to him. It started getting pretty boring for him, so he decided to spice things up. So what does he do that’s special on the hard court? In London during Wimbledon, the ball boys look all serious like a Royal Guard. How about the US open? The ball boys at the US Open display what seems like a professional and formal. He tried changing that notion by being a jokester. The natural jokester he is, whenever he senses a camera on him, he breaks out into a subtle yet amusing pose. Whether it be a wink, a shrug, or an exaggerated dramatization of retrieving a ball, he never fails in making the most stoic of ball boys crack a grin. When others are asked about him, they always mentioned how he makes the job more bearable when it tends to be boring. It is through his humor that he earned himself the title, “The Photobomber of Flushing Meadows.”

Ball boys at tennis tournaments rarely receive any recognition at big events like the US Open. They are usually overshadowed by the big name superstars and cinderellas that come and upset these superstars. The only recognition they get is when one of their buddies get featured on SportsCenter’s Not Top 10 Plays for slipping on the hard court in front of an audience of 20,000 people, not including the millions around the world watching the match on live television. It is safe to say that these ball boys do not want any recognition, but for Jorge it’s his chance to make the most out of the spotlight he is in.

Jorge was and still is not a diehard tennis fan. He still does not know all of the rules or the names of the famous people he retrieves and gives tennis balls to. When asked about why he even decided to try out for the job in the first place, his response like that of many other teenagers there was, “The US Open Tennis tournament is sponsored by Polo Ralph Lauren. Their clothes run for over $100. I’m usually bored over the summers anyway so I thought to myself, ‘Why not?’ All I have to do is run across a court and pick up a ball. How hard can it be? I get paid with clothes and money. I even have the chance of being famous and on national television if I make a nice catch or slip and fall on my butt. That’s cool!”

But when it is championship point, Nadal has zoned in on winning the Open Championship, and the stadium is in pin drop silence in anticipation of his next serve, the cameramen are going to pan and zoom into Nadal’s face, where you will find at the corner of your eye Jorgé’s unfocused pink tongue trying to create the illusion of him licking Nadal’s ear.

Diana-Maria Enrique Sanchez is known to be the loudspeaker of 82 street; yelling “Vienen” “Vienen” “Vienen gentes a la fisioterapeuta” and in English “come, come, come to the physiotherapist”. Her main job is to sit outside the physiotherapist office on 82^nd Street right by the subway station, and draw in as much customers to the clinic by screaming at the top of her lungs, giving a friendly smile and handing out business cards.

The sight of seeing her jump up and down in joy when she woos in a customer to the physiotherapist is one that amuses all visitors in Jackson Heights. Coming around sixty five at the end of this year, she sits through it all; sun, rain, snow and hail. “We tell her to take her vacation or even a short break, but she never listens” says the clinic receptionist. “She loves coming here, maybe because she is bored at home” says one customer. “I don’t know why she does it at this old age, maybe financial problems, but she is what makes the clinic alive, everyone loves her” says another customer.

Diana’s problems are far from financial. In fact, she has enough money to go without doing a job but she continues to do what she does because she is allowed to be herself. Diana’s family consist of her three sons, who own their own construction company, their wives, who are housewives, and her grandchildren. “With a big family, it is fun but not all the time. When you are the old one, everybody seems to think you are about to die, and I hate that feeling”. She is determined not to die anytime soon.

“Even though it isn’t much, I find my job to be the highlight of my day”. All her life Diana was told what to do, and how to be, starting from her birth. When she was young back in Ecuador, her mother wouldn’t let her be; she never had the opportunity to choose what she wanted, and everything was decided by her mother. At the age of sixteen, Diana was married to a twenty five year old man, from “el Norte”. “And when you are from America, you are a big shot even if you are a criminal” Diana says. When both of them got married, her husband took the role, her mother had played all her life. At the age of twenty she migrated to America, she was expected to stay home like a good wife while he went to run his business. “I hated it” she says. “I wanted to explore, I wanted to be free for once”. She decided to take matter into her own hands, while her husband was at work, she used to go outside, run in the park, sometimes, she would use the money she had left over after purchasing the groceries, to buy whatever she felt like eating. She even went as far as having an affair, but “it wasn’t anything serious, I wish it was” she says with a wink.

She says the worst part about my life was not having a job. “See, when you have a job, you are what you call…recognized, but I didn’t have that, I was told what to do by the people who were with me”. “Sometimes I feel idiot, I wanted to do more”, “Sometimes I wanted to fly”, and “nowadays I feel like I waste my life because, I could have done so much more”. These are the reasons she decided to take the job on 82^nd Street. For once in her life she was able to do what she wanted, and she learned how to say “a big NO!”. “I cannot let my children boss me too” she remarks.

“I am happy” she claims. And she is right, she is the most jovial person I have ever met. Everyone she meets, she gives them a piece of her, and they carry it with them. People can never forget her smiling and caring face because she brings joy to people’s heart. “I am living the life I never had, everyday doing this job and by making people happy” she says.  Her voice is easily recognized from the crowds and crowds of people, and the seven train line running above. She screams and shouts with all her might.

Diana’s workspace

The music comes on. The music every child knows. Its hypnotic tune bringing happiness no matter what mood the person is in. The faces of the people we pass immediately change, some whistle the tune, others just have a grin, but most have a full smile, either driven by sentimentality, or by pure glee. We stop by the neighborhood park, and immediately all the kids run out. They push and they fight to be the first in line.

The first to say hi to Julian the Ice Cream man. Finally the first kid comes up. He fidgets in place, jumping from left leg to right. His curly hair covers most of his eyes and he constantly puts it up only for it to fall back down. “Hi sir” he says. “Whats up Ellie?” Julian answers. Julian says he knows every kid in each nearby park on a first name basis. He says its important for him to remember all their names. Based on today he must know at least 100.

“Everything’s good sir” Ellie responds. Julian scratches his own sizeable mass of hair. “Have you been listening to your ma and pa?” Ellie shakes his head enthusiastically. “Have you been getting good grades like I told you?” Ellie shakes his head even more vigorously. His curls are know soaked in sweat and possibly water from the parks water fountain. “Show me.” Julian says. Ellie reaches into his pocket and pulls out some lint and a button. Reaches into his other pocket and pulls out a soggy piece of paper. “Here you go, sir!” He hands it to Julian as quickly as possible. You can tell the kid was waiting for this moment. His hopping is getting even more frequent, as if this moment defines his entire week. Julian takes the paper carefully and observes it. On the paper there is a large A with a smiley face and a teachers signature. Julian cracks a rare smile. “So you finally aced that vocab test huh?” Ellie shakes his head again. “Slushie or Ice Cream?” Julian asks. Ellie points to the Vanilla soft serve cone on the truck. Julian had the ice cream prepared before he even pointed at it. Ellie looks at Julian as if mulling a joke only they understood, Julian shrugs and adds sprinkles. Ellie grabs the cone and runs back to the park shouting a gleeful thanks over his shoulder. These interaction are not rare. They happen often, and Julian says he never feels bad about it.

Julian the Ice Cream Man is a role model in the Flatbush community. He came from Haiti a couple years ago and decided that he would have a steady life and help kids along the way. He often talks about how important it is to help the folks who have nothing to their name besides their kids. Julian is very mildly famous in Flatbush for his program, where he gives kids a free ice cream or slushie if they give him an A on a test. He says it makes him happy to know that kids do better because of it.

Parents often come up to Julian to thank him. They speak about how his program makes their kids try their best, and how without him their kids might not even have passed the test. Julian is a stoic man. He tells me he read some Greek literature that said that real men don’t show emotion,but I couldn’t quite get what Greek literature he was talking of. His answer to the parents was always the same. “My pleasure” and a curt but not rude nod of his head.

Julian says that his job isn’t the most lucrative in fact he said “Man, I barely get by.” He says that “It’s easier know with gas being cheaper, but still nothing crazy” He says that he does his job more for the kids than for himself. According to him “My soul feels better when I help these kids, and soul money is better than real money”. Its strange, a 6 foot tall man that rarely smiles, and has the musculature of a football player might be the kindest man in all of Flatbush.

Frantic shoppers swerve their carts down and through the aisles of Key Food, pass each other, and dash out the front doors. All seem to be on auto-pilot, engulfed in their individualized thought bubbles. Left largely unnoticed and unacknowledged, stands Wesley Elisse as he peacefully restocks the shelves. Creating order out of the day’s disorder, Wesley knows how to make the grocery store run as efficiently as possible.

“I know the place inside out,” said Mr. Elisse, a 60-years old Haitian immigrant with a pleased smile, as he proceeds to restock the milk cartons into the fridge.

Every now and then, a new customer interrupts to ask where to find an item. Whether you’re looking for something ordinary like a box of cereal or something peculiar like some diet-brand loaf of bread, Mr. Elisse will know exactly where to find it. He can even recall at ease whether or not an item is found at the Flatbush Avenue location.

“They come in with their lists like, check, check, cheese, check, oh wait, no, where’s the cheese?! I forgot the cheese. And so there I come in like the hero,” jokes Mr. Elisse.

As I speak to Wesley, a woman leans her hand on the shelf across the aisle and reaches for a can of beans at the very top, knocking over a bunch of other cans in the process. Almost instinctually, Mr. Elisse goes to help the woman as he brings his tall, lanky body over, grasping the can with no effort at all. A quick thank you was exchanged and Mr. Elisse quickly straightened up the mess. “People expect it all to be organized and all, but it doesn’t happen on its own, that’s for sure,” said Mr. Elisse, “It’s routine work.”

“Just pick out the good eggs from this carton and put it in that one,” Mr. Elisse instructs a frantic customer shifting through the egg cartons looking for the perfect one without any cracked eggs. The woman looks skeptically at Mr. Elisse, who seemed to be giving her an inside secret. He chuckles at her gaze and assures her, “Don’t worry, I work here.”

Seemingly the oldest employee in the store, a co-worker shares he is also one of the sweetest staff members and takes his job very seriously. “Just look at him! He’s so focused.”

His sincerity is a constant. When two kids ran down the aisle and knocked over stacked boxes of Kraft’s Macaroni & Cheese, Mr. Elisse quietly picked up each box as he displayed a genuine smile with no hint of frustration or annoyance. Upon placing the last box at the top of the pyramid he constructed, his smile grew at each end with satisfaction of his pristine work.

Mr. Elisse makes enough money at the establishment, but wishes to save up for his family back in Haiti. He hasn’t been back in Haiti for more than five years, well before the most recent earthquake in 2010. He hopes to visit his country again and ensure the safety of his surviving family members. He had experienced many losses among his friends and family and learned to be very grateful for his life in America and his health. “Family always comes first, and I been working hard every day just for them.”

Surrounded by the high walls of products with different brands, advertisement labels, and sale tags, Mr. Elisse reminisces about the fresh open markets of his village. “Nuttin’ like Haiti, darling.”

As I examine the frantic shoppers once more, I realize how refreshing it is to see a man so involved, skilled, and passionate about a job most people rarely acknowledge or appreciate.

The sun was beating down on Sunset Park, on the field you can see a group of children playing soccer, with their backpacks serving as goal posts and nothing but their love of the game to regulate it. Not too far away is a mother packing up a picnic blanket while her husband begins to place their infant boy into his car seat. Meanwhile, their little girl begins to bolt off down the park’s walkway to catch up to Melinda Suarez, the ice woman.

Dawned in a pair of capris pants and a t-shirt covered with an apron, she scoops up a bundle of ice and shoves it into a paper cone, packing it to form a nice round shape. She then picks up a big blue bottle and begins to pour sweet syrup onto the cone, causing the white ice to metamorphose into a blue ball of sugary delight. She smiles under her red visor as she hands the dessert to the eager little girl.

During the warm warm weekend afternoons, Mrs. Suarez’s ice cart serves as an oasis for occupants of Sunset Park as she hands out chilled flavored ices to those in need. She pushes her mobile cart down the pathways around the park and waits for young children to flock around her. Children quickly rush to their parents to get a dollar bill, then they make a B-line for the ice cart. People are always eager to have a delicious and refreshing ice when the temperatures are at a low of 75 degrees Fahrenheit. One child mentioned that he “love[s] ices when it’s hot outside,” and that his favorite flavor is “cherry.”

Mrs. Suarez has been selling ices for over 8 years. She usually works as a nanny throughout the year, but during the hot summer months she lugs her cart to popular areas to provide a nice cool snack for fatigued pedestrians and sugar-happy children. She is a Mexican immigrant that arrived to the United States with her husband in 1998. For the first couple of years, she was a housewife that tended her newborn children. She got the idea to run a cart after speaking to someone who used to do what she does. Now, she runs an ice cart to pass the time when she doesn’t have any work baby-sitting. The business venture makes okay money according to her, which is fine since the main breadwinner in the family is her husband who works in construction.

When Mrs. Suarez first started, she would come to the park with her two daughters and watch them play while she would sell ices to nearby park visitors. Being able to spend time with the girls and make money at the same time was like a dream for Mrs. Suarez. However, now that they’re older, in high school, they don’t like to play outside as much. “They just play on their phones now” exclaimed Mrs. Suarez, who now goes on her ice-capades alone.

Even though her own children outgrew the desire to play in the park, she enjoys seeing all the little kids playing around in the park. Although the weather can be really rough at times, she said she gotten used to it. Plus, she’s willing to bear the heat for her job that lets her be outside and interact with others in the neighborhood. She can always be caught socializing in Spanish with parents visiting the park with their children. She sees it as a nice way of giving back to the community.

Her ice cart isn’t exclusive to Sunset Park however, sometimes she sets up shop on the streets of 4^th and 5^th ave to catch the influx of kids walking home from school. Mrs. Suarez exclaims she “goes where the people are,” and wherever she goes, she makes sure to bring the ice.

“Cherries! Cherries! Sweet cherries! Blueberries! Strawberries!” is yelled in a rhythmic and catchy pattern in front of the Chinese “Thanksgiving Supermarket” grocery store.

Miguel Loeza is a young thirty-four-year-old man in plain clothing. Wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans, he is short, but well built. He needs to be for his job.

Encompassing the front side of the store is a canvas of colors. In the background is the sound of the nearby elevated train tracks, and dozens of people walking, talking, and touching the produce being unloaded to make sure it’s fresh and unblemished. Miguel unloads packages upon packages of heavy produce, picking at most of the blemished and rotten foods that slipped through the cracks before the customers could ever find them themselves. Only the best can be on the shelves of this Thanksgiving Supermarket. The yellowest lemons, the greenest peppers, and most importantly, the reddest cherries.

“Cherries are my favorite fruit. I grew up in a farm in Mexico and I remember my mother would always put fresh cherries in my breakfast.” Miguel is completely focused in his work setting up the produce ranging from watermelons to apples to corn in a well stacked and organized fashion.

“Believe it or not, the worst part of my job is unloading the cherries. They are very small and if you don’t unload them in the container carefully, they will roll off to the floor. It happened once. The bosses were not happy” he laughed.

Miguel came to America alone eleven years ago. “It was very tough coming to America. I knew no English and I sent most of my money back to my family in Mexico.” Single and alone in America, the bulk of Miguel’s money went to his parent because their farm has been going through some tough years.

When asked why his childhood farm isn’t doing well, he sighs “Corruption and drought. The two killers.” Miguel’s family’s farm is located in Nuevo Leon, a state in Northern Mexico in a town called General Teran. His family could simply not afford maintaining the farm and Miguel took it upon himself to come to America at the young age of twenty-three to supplement his parents income. “I don’t make much money here, but every dollar counts. And in Mexico, every dollar counts twice as much.”

Miguel’s face becomes tired and sad on the topic of the farm, but this quickly disappears and in place a cheery aura is exuded when he sings his cherry tune. “Cherries, Cherries! Sweet Cherries! Blueberries! Strawberries!”

“I didn’t come up with that myself. I actually heard another worker in Dyker Heights say it, but he didn’t sing it like I do and I added the sweet cherries part. I always loved how it rhymes, so I’ve been saying it ever since.”

When one looks at Miguel, the first thing they would notice is how strong and large his arms are. The grocery packing work is grueling. Long hours, heavy boxes, and a constant requirement for attention to make sure no one steals any of the produce.

“I could have gotten an easier job, but I don’t mind. I am a farm boy, I have always been doing hard work and I am good at it.”

And good at it he is. Miguel makes something as seemingly as mundane as packaging and unloading into an art form. His movements are concise, flexible, and quick. Occasionally he even juggles some of the fruit. Little things like that, as well as the comradery the coworkers, most of whom are Mexican, seem to have keep things enjoyable at this little grocery shop.

“My friends here are so helpful and nice. We always make jokes and talk about soccer games and memories of Mexico with each other.”

Miguel concedes though that they often make fun of him for singing his little cherry tune.
They called me “el hombre de cerezo, The Cherry Man.”

“Better than banana man I guess.”