No doubt about it, Francisco Navarro-Robles says, it'll be a cool story to tell the grandkids. How in late May 2008, he was on the way to getting his U.S. citizenship when he feared the traffic crawling into downtown Los Angeles would make him late for the ceremony at the Convention Center.
And how he told his friends he was getting out of the car and then walked the last mile or so on the shoulder of the 110 Freeway in intermittent rain that soaked the shirt, tie and shoes he'd worn just for the occasion.
Pretty good story.
But it's a story that started 17 years ago when he crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and illegally entered the country. "People always talked about the United States, and I wanted to see if what people said was true," he says. "I was worried. I was only 18, crossing the border with a friend. It was not a pleasant moment in my life."
Unable to speak any English, he got successive jobs washing dishes in a restaurant and then packing boxes in a grocery store. In 1992, a Santa Ana steakhouse hired him as a busboy. He knew that many people assumed he was an illegal resident, but not speaking the language caused him problems he hadn't expected.
"It's a nightmare," he says. "You feel like you're nobody. People try to talk to you, you want to be nice to them, but you can't answer or say anything back, you don't understand what they're saying. The worst part is people ask you for something, like a glass of water, or 'Hey, can I get a napkin?,' and I'd just walk away. It was hard for the first couple years."
He decided to learn English and started by watching cartoons on TV -- hours and hours of them. At work, he vowed to pick up a word or phrase every day.
This is a glass. This is a napkin.
The manager liked what he saw. A few years into the job, he told Francisco he could wait tables. "I wasn't feeling comfortable talking in English," he says, "but I told myself that if he believed in me, I could do it. The first couple months, when I'd try to take orders from people and make conversation, the only thing I could do was take their order and ask how they wanted their steak cooked. That's it. If they asked me something else, I'd say, 'I'll be right back.' "
His English improved by using it, just as his boss told him it would. As conversation flowed easier, tips got better. His boss told Francisco he was bumping him up to bartender, where understanding English would be even more important.
