Italians Don’t Do It Better

“So what do they have you do at these treatments?” I asked

“They shoot IV in my arms for a couple of hours” she said

I was driving her into Center City. I made a left onto 10th street and then I came at a red light.

“Why do they shoot you with IV?”

“They pump drugs into me to kill the cancer cells.”

We sat at the red light.

“You see those people over there?” she asked.

“Yeah”

I looked at the street corner. I saw two Latinos and a African American.

“They stand on the corner and wait for a van to come pick them up”

They stood in the sun with plain t-shirts and jeans. One had a hat on to block the sun out of his eyes.

“A van?”

“Yea, it picks them up and they take any work they can get”

I was curious as to how she knew so much about these particular people.

“You think they’re undocumented?”

“Yea. They stand there and wait. It looks like some of them are already gone for today”

“Well, they probably escaped a more oppressive county, and their trying to make money for their families or themselves”

The light turned green and we crossed the intersection into Chinatown.

“Here get in the left lane”

“Okay”

I looked real quick in my mirror and merged into the left side of the street.

“Never eat in Chinatown.” she said, “this place is so dirty”

“How?”

“They leave their food out front in the dirty street, it’s so unsanitary”

“I’ve only eaten once at Kingdom. It’s a vegetarian place, somewhere around here”

“I’m not trying to be stereotypical, but these people are so filthy”

I didn’t say anything.

“You go to the Italian part of the city and it’s immaculate”

“Mom, I’ve been in South Philly, some of my friends live there, it’s dirty too”

“You go to all the other parts of the city and they leave trash everywhere”

“That’s because the city doesn’t care in those areas”

“Well if you go to the Italian Market…”