The Taste of Paradise

        The sun burns down hot today. Hardly any leaves move on the trees. The humidity is high. The air is heavy and still. It’s torture even in the shade.

      I see them coming, and I hold my right hand above my eyes, almost like a salute, in order to lessen the glare of the sun. There are four of them, those yellow school buses. They come rolling into town looking like they’ve traveled a long way and need to unload. One right behind another they come to where we

are standing.

      When they stop the doors fly open, all four almost at the same time. And then here they are, filing off the buses, these strange men I’ve never seen before.

      They’ve come a long way packed in those buses. They were crowded into them, buses made for children, with narrow seats designed for little bodies on short trips twice a day. But these strange men I have never seen before have come all the way from Mexico.

       I’m almost shocked by the spectacle of the Mexicans. When they get off the buses they flow out into the street and come toward us. Like a rising tide they move from the street up into the square. They walk out into the middle of it and begin to settle in. They seem happy to breathe fresh air and stand and reach up. They’re hot, tired, and dirty. They stretch and yawn and wipe away sweat and scratch. They walk stiffly and some collapse on the green grass in the middle of the square. Some prop themselves against trees as they sit down on the ground. Some pull their big hats down over their sleepy eyes. Some are wide awake. Some are perhaps telling jokes I cannot understand, but know must be funny from the way they laugh.

      I stand there looking at them, knowing they are different, but somehow must also be the same as us for they have families back home. Surely they have some dreams and some hopes for them. And these dreams and hopes have brought them to Dooly.

      The Mexicans have come to pick cotton. That’s why they’re here. The cotton-picking Mexicans, as some call them, have finally arrived. They have one function, one thing to do, one need to meet, one mission. Pick the cotton. It’s time and someone has to do it. The fields are white and ready for the harvest and someone has to go out and do it.

      It’s hard work. It’s dirty, hot, backbreaking work somebody has to do. And that’s why they’re here, a couple of thousand miles away from home. The Mexicans will do it because they can and they need to and they need the work and their people at home need the money. And the people in Dooly, Georgia need the Mexicans to do for them what they cannot do for themselves, pick the cotton.

      When the Mexicans come to town we all take notice. We all stop and watch the four yellow school buses go by in the summertime. The high-class rich people and the low-class poor people and the indifferent in between middle-class people all see the yellow school buses go by and come to a stop in the middle of town.

      They see the yellow school buses go by, but that is all. Almost nobody sees the Mexicans get off the buses. In Dooly the Mexicans are invisible men. Two hundred invisible men come to Dooly in the summertime. For most people invisible is what they remain.

      They’re needed in Dooly, but no one wants to see them. They’re wanted, but no one wants them. Without them the rich would not be able to be rich and the poor would not know how poor they are and the in between middle-class would not be able to be in between.

      The plague has come to town again. The Mexicans have come to Dooly again, but nobody sees them, these invisible men and nobody says welcome to them.

      No one prepared me for what I’m seeing. I had formed no advance picture of who the Mexicans are or what they are like or how they look. And now here they are.

      I watch them as they mill around the square. I notice how they’re dressed. Most are wearing white cotton shirts, not like the ones my dad wears, but different. And most wear white pants that match. Some wear shirts and pants of various colors, but most wear white and I’m struck by this sea of white I’m seeing. And the hats. They’re large like you would think Mexicans would wear. Some are made of straw, but most are made of felt.

      I’m there with Bobby Jim. He’s almost my age and lives next door to us. He’s brought me down here to the center of town to see the Mexicans arrive.

      “Come with me,” Bobby Jim says as he heads off toward the center of the square. I go with him, though I don’t know what he’s doing. We wander through the Mexicans. They don’t see us. To them,