Juan tentatively settled into the seat .  He was uncomfortable in the second row. The speaker nodded and smiled.  Juan understood most of his words but wasn’t sure what “Table Topics meant or why everyone started laughing.  ¿Se ríe de mí? (Are they laughing at me?), he wondered.

In school, in church or on the bus, Juan sat in the back row.  The bus had been late, again, which is why he was late, again.  Wearing his smile, he looked around into the laughing faces.  ¿Por qué vine aquí? (Why did I come here?)

The man in front of him stood up, shook the speaker’s hand and started talking.  Juan could tell he was speaking English but found his accent very thick.  It wasn’t a Spanish accent; he knew the sound of that struggle.  The man returned to his seat amid polite applause after saying just a few words.  Juan tepidly touched his hands together.  ¿Por qué están aplaudiendo? (Why are they applauding?)

As the speaker asked a question of some sort, a woman stood up and sucrried behind the lectern.  The speaker stood there with his hand extended.  When the woman finally noticed him she ran to shake his hand.  Everyone laughed and Juan put the smile back on his lips.

As a boy his smile had been big, bright and bold, and he wore it with everyone he saw.  He offered it to his mother when her eyes would well with tears.  He used it to try and answer questions, to which he did not know the answers.  When his teachers scolded him and told him that a smile was not the answer his classmates would laugh.  That laughter fell on his heart like cold heavy rain drops causing the smile to damply cling to his lips.

Juan’s mind anxiously drifted back in time.  “Wetback! What the hell are you smiling at?”  Those words, once just foreign noise, ripped and torn into him as the meaning became clearer.  Laboring, hunched over for unending hours, in the strawberry fields seemed a long way off now, but the battle to live in the language of that foreman’s was far from over.  Juan had come to learn to speak.  The crackle of applause brought him back.  The speaker started to stand.  The woman stuck her hand out for him before he could even straighten up.  As she pumped his hand empathically, there was another chorus of chuckles.

The speaker asked another question, looked over the audience and then, pointed to an older man who began to make his way from the back row to the front of the room.  The old man smiled apologetically while placing his hand on Juan’s shoulder to steady himself.  The old man moved as if his spirit had to encourage each muscle and bone to keep on going.  Juan remembered having been so tired he could barely hold himself up.  The sound of the old man words were seasoned with the salt and soul of Juan’s father.  Seemingly indifferent to his thick accent, he spoke, captivating everyone.  Juan applauded with everyone else.

The speaker said something which sounded like “Ben ‘ave u per sir veerd”, and pointed at Juan.  Juan tensed. The speaker reached his hand out and encouraged him to stand.  Juan looked out over the smiling faces, turning to the speaker, he said, “I do—No, I do not… comprendez.”   The old man, having found his way back to his seat, turned and said in Spanish, “Perseverancia significa para proceder con confianza en el futuro.” (Perseverance means proceeding confidently into the future.)

Those that understood nodded their heads. Juan smiled.  His smile emanated like sunshine from his spine.

Do not wish your life was easier, instead, strengthen yourself so you can persevere, until.