Saturdays were always a big deal in my family. Not only did they culminate a long week of school, but they were some of the few days of the month when my family would actually get to eat proper meals together, sleep at the same time, and be around one another without anyone needing to do something. To most, a Saturday is a lazy day, but to me, it’s a time to appreciate the family who gave me life, the memories created on this one day of the week, and the occasional Saturday cleaning where my abuela would yell at me to get out of the kitchen so she could mop.
Before my youngest sibling was born, my parents spent most of their week working, working, working. Although to them, Saturdays were just another workday. To my sister and I, it meant we could hang out with our parents and explore their world.
During this phase of life, my dad was only a construction worker, whose Saturday mornings and early afternoons were taken up by blueprints and laying the foundation for future homes and buildings. And although this meant he was out of the house for eight hours, that didn’t mean our family was separated. And so most Saturdays, while my mom was making lunch for my dad at 6 a.m., my dad was waking my sister and I up to join him. Although that meant my sister and I would spend eight hours between his work’s office, his big brown truck, or the porta-potty, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. It meant we got to have donuts for breakfast on the way, my dad would spend his lunch with us, and we got to see giant machinery flying in the air. These Saturday mornings were truly the defining moments of my childhood.
If by some occasion, my sister and I couldn’t spend our mornings with my dad, you could guarantee that my abuela would take us in at 6 am instead. Because both my parents worked most days, my sister and I temporarily lived with my abuela on the weekdays so she could take us to and from school, and then my dad could pick us up in the afternoon. So, in hindsight, it’s not a big shocker when we’d go to her house on Saturdays. However, this also meant early working mornings for my sister and I filled with Spanish radio music playing as my abuela forced us to help clean up her home. Not my favorite mornings by far, but one can’t deny that Spanish music and tacos for breakfast are not a great way to end the week.
However, one of my favorite parts of Saturdays was when my dad would pick up, or we’d go with him after his job, to pick up my mom from work. During this time, she worked as the manager for a fast food restaurant, but she also didn’t know how to drive, so when she wasn’t busing back home, my dad would pick her up. What I loved about this, though, was when the workers would give my sister and I water cups, and we’d go crazy on Cherry Coke or Sprite. And because my mom worked as a manager, she was almost always in the office, so my sister and I would roam around the back kitchen so we could get to her office. To many, these moments seem simplistic or boring, but as an adult, they still manage to make me smile or remember easier times in my life.
My favorite parts of Saturdays, however, were our steady family outings to random American restaurants like Denny’s or BJ’s. I think a large reason why my parents were keen on American restaurants was to help our family “fit in” better with America, especially since by this point we all lived very unconventional lives that American TV usually didn’t promote. Regardless, to child-me this outing always manages to make me tear up. Not only does it remind me of the struggles my parents had and the sacrifices they made only years prior by coming to the States, but it also shows me how much growth my family has made today.
What I enjoyed most about these dinners was how much joy our tiny Mexican family had in a place we otherwise didn’t fit in. Ordering items like burgers, milkshakes, and sandwiches, and then swapping them with each other. Or playing the table games we all had never heard of before. But nothing tops the times when we all just felt free from whatever issue or problem we had going on at the moment.
Although it may seem like my parents were workaholics or spent little to no time with their kids, that truly could not be further from the truth. Yes, they worked a lot, but in the end, they always managed to make time for my sister and I, even if it meant just eating donuts in a dirty Honda truck or watching American TV none of us really understood. Saturdays are more than a day in the week; it’s a memory, an immigrant success story, and hard work to bring smiles to two children’s faces.