There are only enough workers if we look to the immigrant population, and we want legal immigrants.

Darryl and I have committed to trying to give back what some of the Hispanic workers have given to us over the years. Their hard labor has helped make us successful as a company.

They're far more motivated than the general population here, and they have stronger family values.

Immigrant parents, when they first move to North America, push towards whiteness, towards assimilation, to survive and thrive. Naturally, their children do too for the first half of their lives. This usually tips the other way, but before we're taught anything, we're taught to hide.

I do not knowingly employ undocumented workers. That's absolutely not my style.

I knew they were my people, but it didn't feel like it. I was pushing against any first-generation narrative, while all the people in that area were seemingly proud of it. Aunties wore salwars to go grocery shopping, and little kids had those silver or gold bangles we were all given at birth...We were different from them, and I was determined to keep us different. Every piece of gold jewelry ever given to me was hidden in my dresser; I refused to wear any of it, because it made me feel I was being marked as an Other. (I now wear all of it, sometimes at the same time, a signal to other Others that I'm an Other too.)