In the 'Barn' I Realized Just How Lucky I Am

摘要

My firstjob in high school wasn't scooping ice cream or tearing movie-theater tickets. Instead, I spent a summer working at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, where my mother, a Foreign Service officer with the State Department, was stationed. I was assigned to the "visa barn"—aptly nicknamed because of the building's shape, and its chaotic interior with rows of benches for applicants to wait In Mexico, low-paying tasks that might be reserved as summer jobs for teenagers in the United States—cabdriving, pizza delivery—were usually filled by adult members of the country's enormous poverty-stricken class, so teenagers from families with money (which simply meant enough money to live) didn't work during the school break. And since I wouldn't have earned even minimum wage by American standards, I took a job in the barn.