(HOST) Part of the Christmas Story tells about being turned away from the Inn, and finding shelter in a stable. It’s a lesson that commentator Gloria Gonzalez thinks is still relevant today.
(GONZALEZ) A year ago, when I heard that I was not the only Mexican in Addison County, I was exited at the possibility of helping improve Mexican migrant workers’ quality of life.
I was not surprised to see that among the most successful of service activities offered migrant workers are church gatherings. Most Mexicans are devout Christians, and of them the largest group is Catholic. In Vermont several churches have generously taken up the task of offering Mexican workers a place to gather with services in Spanish.
While I am not a church-goer, I like to attend Spanish mass, where I can meet up with friends old and new. Some of my students offer English lessons for workers and Spanish for their patrones.
This month’s mass included a celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the most revered religious figure in Mexico. I heartily and somewhat sentimentally joined in singing villancicos, that I remembered from childhood. Villancicos are traditional hymns sung during posadas, or Christmas processions enacting Jos and Mar a’s search in Bethlehem for an inn to spend the night prior to the birth of baby Jesus. In neighborhoods, church courtyards, and schools, kids dress as shepherds, Joseph, and Mary. The ritual comes complete with a burro and lots of candles and sparklers.
During the procession, inn keepers turn Joseph and Mary away, believing they might be tunantes, thieves or rascals. All take turns slamming their doors at the pilgrims – all but the last of the innkeepers, who realizes he’s talking to the holy family and welcomes them in with a joyous hymn.
Those previously shunned are then given the best their hosts can offer: a delicious dinner of tamales and ponche de navidad, a fragrant punch of cooked guavas, oranges, prunes, and other winter fruits. Children break a pi ata for baby Jesus and serenade the newborn with Las Ma anitas, the Mexican birthday song.
I can’t help but relate this story to what I see around me. Mexicans in Vermont are not the holy family, but they are human beings. Some people focus only on their status as undocumented workers, believing they are tunantes, rascals who rob Americans of their jobs, but in fact they contribute to Vermont’s economy by keeping small family farms viable. Many Americans struggling to make ends meet know this. Among them are their employers, who say that without them they might have to sell their farms and open the land to real estate development.
So in the best of Christmas spirits, they do what decent people do show their appreciation and hospitality with a Mexican style Christmas party.
I hope that Congress will soon see that these are family-oriented, hard working people who would better contribute to this society if they could only do it legally. And act upon that realization.
That is my wish for the New Year. And “paz y felicidad para todos” – peace and joy to all!
Gloria Estela Gonzalez teaches Latin American literature and Spanish at Middlebury College.