An Idea About Mexicans

         My grandmother believes that Mexicans flock to the color orange like seagulls flock to bread. We Foys, as a family, are not quite sure when this idea formed in her mind, though we believe it was sometime after the death of her longtime husband who died from Parkinson’s Disease in the summer of 2005. She had not, until then expressed an interest in people of different races.
         This tendency first started during a visit to our home early this fall when she commented on the state of her grocery store at home in Fredericksburg, Virginia. This grocery store, previously a grimy Food Lion surrounded by Chinese restaurants with inedible food, is now a low-scale Food Lion knockoff called the Bottom Dollar. Her issue with this certain Bottom Dollar is not the food or lack thereof, but the color. The signs, aisles, and bags are a sickly neon orange color that scars the eyes upon the first glance.  The people who work there (mainly those of Mexican descent) are forced to wear florescent orange vests made of some nylon faux-fabric. We don’t know how she drew the parallel between Mexicans and this orange color, though we truly want to understand it, even if only for purely scientific purposes.
         She left a week later, and for a month we heard nothing further about the Mexicans and their favorite color. She returned in October for my birthday, bringing pictures with her. These pictures detailed the life of our relatives who live near her, the church she attends, the people she has boarding in her house, the state of her various nonworking automobiles, and pictures of the orange Bottom Dollar. The pictures detailed the inside of the Bottom Dollar in question, which is equally as grimy as the previous Food Lion.
         The next week my mother got a call from my grandmother, who had since returned to her rundown salmon-pink house with its aqua shutters.  They conversed continued for only a few minutes, my mother’s side mostly just various versions of yes. I normally don’t talk to my grandmother when she calls for the simple reason that she tends to ramble on, which is not entertaining for someone like me who detests talking on the phone. My mother handed me our white cordless phone, which is the size of the very first cell phones, at which time my grandmother provided me with this disturbing statistic:  “Aerynn, did you know that Mexicans are fifty times more likely to drown in the river by my house?” I do not know where she came up with the statistic or how many Mexicans died in the river by her house, but I do know that I will never think of that river the same way again.
         A month later, my grandmother was hospitalized for a supposed stroke which turned out to be the result of high blood pressure. She moved back in with us for a few weeks, driving everyone insane in the process and forcing my father and me to leave the house at odd hours of the morning on Sunday to escape the strenuous activity of going to church with her. 
         I am proud to say that I live in a culturally diverse neighborhood, though when my grandmother comes to stay I wish I lived in one of those typical suburban neighborhoods. She stands at our bay window overlooking the street, which happens to be for most people a direct route to and from the mall. When I return home from school, usually before my parents, she will detail to me the things she has seen the various Mexicans, African Americans, and Asians doing while walking down the street. She comes out with comments such as, “I just don’t see why they wear their pants so low!” or “Why aren’t they working?” Upon telling her they most likely work at night or have the day off, I am greeted with the response: “Those Mexicans, who do they think they are stealing our jobs?”
         My grandmother is not racist, and she does believe in racial equality. The problem is that despite her personal views she has never come into contact with people of different races. Her children say she is simply intrigued by them. Though we, the grandchildren, have formed our own simple idea about her seemingly racist acts. She is simply obsessed, obsessed with the idea of their strangeness. In turn, I have to extend my thanks to the Mexicans, for it is through their orange-loving, job- stealing, letting-each-other-drown-in-rivers lives that  my grandmother has moved out of her depression and discovered a new reason to live. So I say cheers to the Mexicans. Let them steal our jobs and paint everything orange, as long as it keeps my grandmother distracted from the topic that I haven’t been to church with her since I was seven.