ArcaMax

When I was a high school kid in Missouri, around 1972 or so, there were people in our town who used the word "foreigner" to refer to anyone who spoke English with an accent or spoke no English at all. Some older people would say someone was "speaking foreign" if they spoke a language other than English.

Neither thing was necessarily meant as an insult, either. We had plenty of racial and ethnic insults, and we used them all the time, mostly when we were talking about Black people born in this country, all of whom spoke English. "Foreigner" was just an identifier, like "fat guy" or "that blonde woman over there."

I'm more sophisticated. When I want to indicate that someone isn't from America and can't speak English, I say "guy who worked on my house." It's more polite, and it's more exact.

We just bought a new house, and we're doing some things. New roof. Tiling the kitchen. We've bought some new furniture.

The roof was put on by a mostly Brazilian crew, with a splash of Guatemalans for spice. Three Brazilians tiled my kitchen, and two of them spoke no English. A Mexican and a Guatemalan carried the new bed in from the van.

The way it usually works is there's one guy who speaks enough English to quote the price and make the deal. Below him are his employees, fetch-and-carry guys whose English is shaky or not there at all. I talk to the boss; he talks to the fetch-and-carry guys. Stuff gets done.

We have some native-born Americans who do work for us. We call them, "Where the hell is he?" as in, "He said he'd be here at 4 and it's 5:30 and he didn't answer my text."

Of course, the American guys are professionals with licenses, so no one expects them to be on time. In fact, not showing up at all is frequent. That doesn't worry us though. If the guy doesn't show, we just find another American.

The non-English speaking foreigners who work on my house respond to everything I say with a smile and a nod. It's the new immigrant's way of saying, "I'm not one of the dangerous ones. See, I'm working, and no, I'm not looking at your wife even if she is very blonde."

What they say about us in their own language I don't know. Language is a shield. My father and I both spoke the Canadian version of French. When we lived in the Midwest, we used it as a secret language, a way to make fun of other people without them knowing.

Crude, I know, but immigration and assimilation are rude and crude and painful and a nasty mix of Borscht Belt humor, Polish jokes and using the language of the Old Country to talk bad about the American boss right in front of him.

I like to think they say good things about us, if only because we tell them they can use our bathroom and we're very generous with bottled water.

We had a crew of very new Brazilians put a roof on our last house, and my wife went out in the yard and told the boss that his crew could use our bathroom.

"No," he said. "We got a bucket in the van."

Which is how you come to America. Minimum wage or a little more, and a bucket in the van when the temperature is in the high 80s and the van's been parked in the sun for a while.

To find out more about Marc Dion, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called "Mean Old Liberal." It is available in paperback from Amazon.com and for Nook, Kindle, and iBooks.