Dear Ford Motor Company,

Father started working with you on November 10, 1966, four years before I was born. Growing up, I saw your navy oval symbol everywhere. On keychains, sweatshirts, notepads, pencils, on all of our cars. In my driveway now, there are two Ford cars.

After my mother died, I found a box with your papers in it. In that box were two letters from you. One dated January 10, 1992. Someone had hand-written in the “1” in 1992. Someone didn’t want to waste paper or time to reprint the letter.

When I lifted the paper up toward the light, I could see a Ford watermark in the middle. If you lift me up toward the light, you can see a Ford watermark in my chest.

The letter says:

Dear Fu

Ken Dabrowski and I would like to congratulate you on your perfect attendance record for 1991. This significant achievement takes personal dedication and an attitude of loyalty, teamwork and cooperativeness for which I express my genuine gratitude.

Sincerely,
R. H. Schaffart

The second letter, dated February 8, 1994, states:

Dear Fu:

Congratulations! You made it in 1993-Perfect Attendance. I appreciate your dedication.

Loyalty, teamwork and cooperation contribute to the Ford Motor goal of improvement in everything we do, and you have proved this by your 1993 Perfect Attendance.

A. Iaconelli

I wonder how many of these letters R. H. Schaffart and A. Iaconelli signed. I wonder how many people achieved perfect attendance each year. I graduated from the University of Michigan in 1992 and entered graduate school after that. My sister graduated from Stanford University in 1991 and entered law school after that. While we were busy overeducating ourselves, Father was showing up to work every single day.

I imagine him sitting at a metal desk in a cubicle, trying to figure out how to exhibit American loyalty, teamwork, and cooperativeness.

I remember going to Father’s office once. I think this was when he had gotten promoted. I remember his talking about Ford and the people he worked with. I remember the ambition and wildness in his voice. Sometimes tinged with anger, sometimes with frustration. Now that I’m older, I can imagine his not understanding the English clichés, idioms—all the cultural differences.

Dear Ford Motor Company, do you know that I didn’t learn the phrase the straw that broke the camel’s back until college? I’ve never heard Father say miss the boat or time to hit the sack or it’s not rocket science or pull yourself together or time flies when you’re having fun or wrap your head around something or a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush …

Somewhere along the way, I picked up some idioms from other people. From Scooby Doo. From Inspector Gadget. The Brady Bunch. Gilligan’s Island. And from my favorite, The Love Boat, where everyone was always falling in love until the boat docked. Because landing meant giving up the past.

Dear Ford Motor Company, I’ve always thanked you for giving Father a desk. A lamp. An office. A computer. I’ve always thanked you for giving me my desk. My lamp. My office. My computer. For allowing me to speak out of silence, when silenced, and when I have silenced myself.

I still have a Ford Motor Company stapler on my desk. I’ve always thanked you for stapling my family to this country. But sometimes I can’t help feeling as if I’m a woodcut of this country. And that you are the woodcutter.

Now that I’m older, I have thought harder about assimilation, realized that assimilation has a price. I have thought more about who gets to assimilate and why, about the downsides of assimilation, what’s lost during the gains. And that assimilation is often largely economic, not political or cultural.

Only today do I have the language to understand that assimilation means adopting dominant norms and ideals such as whiteness. And that since assimilation is ultimately unachievable, there is always a gap, a space of estrangement.

I’ve also since thought harder about all those consecutive days Father worked, his perfect attendance and the idea that we strive to fill or complete things as a form of assimilation, that assimilation, like overeducating myself, is an endless pursuit. I’ve since come to think that maybe emptying out is the beautiful thing. The space between the raindrops. The space where I live. The space where Father now lives and where he will die.