Almost seven years ago in Lima, Peruvian Luis Fernandez arrived home after a long day of high stakes gambling. He felt like he was the worst person in the world when his daughter asked him to take her out to eat grill chicken at one of his favorite places and he had nothing to give her. Fernandez had spent his whole salary.
“Daddy, do not worry if you don’t have money now,” Fernandez’s daughter said, “you can take me out another day.”
Soon afterward, among tears, Fernandez realized that he needed to change how his life was going. His habit had gotten out of control. He was 31years old.
Today, Fernandez is 39 and living a completely different life in New York. With two jobs and working more than 12 hours a day, Fernandez does not complain. He is glad of being in New York.
Fernandez is one of more than 1.5 million immigrants that increasingly arrive to North America each year. Like the others, he is just looking for a better opportunity to support his family back in Peru.
“The majority of immigrants come to America to work, leaving a loved family in their countries,” Fernandez said.
Fernandez came to America in 2001 because he had lost his job in the Wiesse bank, where he had worked as superintendent in the bank vault. After 12 years working there, the bank had gone bankrupt.
When he arrived to New York, he worked for 6 months as a dishwasher in the cafeteria of Dowling College, in Oakdale, NY. Because he had enjoyed working and it was good money he decided to stay longer.
What Fernandez had never imagined is that he was going to end up sleeping in the carpet of the Dowling College’s cafeteria for twenty days. At the beginning of his days in America, he didn’t have car and he had the night shift. His only choice was sleeping in the carpet. “I can believe that in this country the busses don’t run until late in the day,” he said.
Fernandez recalls how Gerard Nacea, his boss, gave him a car because his son bought a new one. “This is for you so you won’t sleep any more here,” Nacea said.
Nowadays, he has two jobs: one in a cleaning company and another one in the cafeteria of Stony Brook, Long Island, NY. He works from 7.00 a.m. until 11.00 p.m.
One workmate, Jose Diaz, who is from Dominican Republic and has been working in the cafeteria at Stony Brook University with Mr. Fernandez for six months, talks about sometimes he is not a good workmate. “Dicen que en la cárcel, el que es amigo de los policías, no es amigo de los presos.” (There is a saying; a friend of the police men is not a friend of the prisoners). He fears that he can be an informant for the bosses.
He got divorced more than 13 years ago. His ex-wife now lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is the father of two. Elisabeth, 22, who has studied law and lives with her mom, and Joseph, 24, who lives in Lima with Fernandez’s mom, Francisca Salazar of 80 years old.
After a year in America, Fernandez’s son fell ill with testicular cancer. As he burst into tears, something deep inside of him shifted. Now he just could think about earning enough money to pay Joseph’s treatments. “In the beginning, the chemotherapy was every fifteen days, but after two years it is every three months,” Fernandez said.
Fernandez remembers how he had to ask Gerard, his boss, for more money to pay his son’s treatments and return it with more work. “Thanks to the money I have earned working here, I have been able to pay the treatments for Joseph and the university of my Elisabeth,” said Fernandez.
According to his daughter, he is very maternal to the point that sometimes he can be really obnoxious. He is so overprotective even though we are already grown up. “The first impression he gives is of having a strong character, however, his gruffness is just a front; he’s very sweet,” Elisabeth said.
Elisabeth doesn’t judge him, but she knows that he feels remorse and blames himself for his divorce. “He cheated on my mom not one, but several times,” she said, “he was such a womanizer and had many vices.”
When Fernandez was in Peru, he had dabbled in many vices: women, gambling in casinos and betting on horse races. “He frequented one of the most expensive casinos in Peru, where he would bet in dollars,” she said, “ betting in dollars at that time made for higher stakes as the dollar had triple the value of the Peruvian currency, the sol.”
According to Elisabeth, Fernandez also used to drink and go out every weekend. He did not spend too much time with them. However, he always made sure that they were well fed and properly clothed. When he didn’t have a steady job, he used to work as a taxi driver to pay for there schooling.
When Elisabeth would go out a Saturday night, he used to wake her up on Sunday angrily calling her name from his bedroom. She thought that she had done something wrong. Once she arrived to the door of his bedroom, he said “Have you cleaned your butt?” He just started to roar with laughter by seeing her frightened face.
A thing Elisabeth dislikes the most, it is when he sends money to friends to drink during festivities and they do not even call him to see how he is doing. He also sends money on his birthday to his whole family so they can all celebrate, even though he is not there.
One year ago, Fernandez met one of his bosses at the cafeteria of SBU, Andres David Calvache, who said that what he admires from Fernandez is “his ambition to improve his state of life in the U.S.”
“I want to open a restaurant when I come back to Peru in approximately one year,” he said, “I give thanks to America for giving me the opportunity that it has given to me, even though I am separated of my family for such a long time.”
