On this Cinco de Mayo, I say, “Bienvenido!”

It’s twilight in my neighborhood, when I pulled out of my driveway. Across the street, Hispanic men were still loading a huge truck with tree stumps, branches, and other debris from my neighbor’s lawn. Those men had been working there since early in the morning erecting a wooden fence and cleaning up the backyard. Had the neighbors who had hired them offered the men food or even water?

I passed another house under major construction and heard the sound of hammers. Many evenings we had watched these Hispanic carpenters work until the light was gone. Throughout the day, Hispanic lawn crews had pulled into our neighborhood to cut grass, trim bushes and hedges, and mulch. Springtime means lots of mulching in Northern Virginia. My own lawn service, all Hispanics, had done their weekly work and left bags of grass by the road. We make sure to put out a bucket filled with cold bottled water for them.

I drove to my old neighborhood to have dinner with friends. As usual I made a point of passing the house I had lived in for 38 years on Rosemary Lane, so different from my new house, a midcentury modern, meaning a low-sloped roof over walls of glass. My Rosemary Lane house is the opposite, a dark pokey Cape Cod built in 1945, not without its charm but always in need of work. Because my husband, John, didn’t like to spend money, I did most of the work myself, scraping wallpaper, mending walls, and painting. Half-ass could be my middle name. The work I did looked okay for a while.

But when the asbestos tile in the ceiling buckled and the walls started crumbling in places, I convinced my reluctant husband that we needed a professional. A neighborhood contractor came by to give us an estimate and told us he knew of no one who plastered. “That’s an old skill. Nobody does it nowadays.” He was a West Virginian with an easy smile and a toothpick. “We’ll just put dry wall over your walls.”

“If you do that, what happens to the wainscoting and baseboards?” I asked.

He agreed that would be a problem. Other contractors had similar quickie solutions to “fixing our walls and ceiling” until we met with a Hispanic contractor recommended by a friend. German had a plasterer in his crew, a man named Miguel, who spoke little English but knew his trade. We hired them. Miguel got dropped off every morning. For lunch John made Miguel a hot sandwich and brought him tea, coffee, or water during the day. John also liked to observe Miguel work and wanted to help. If Miguel objected, he never said so.

There are good people on our southern border who wish to join our crazy experiment in democracy. They come from places that are violent, where their children are not safe. They make a long dangerous journey to our border. I have lived among Hispanics many years and find most to be family-oriented and hard-working.

We are a nation of immigrants. At one time, all of our ancestors knocked at this door we call America. On this Cinco de Mayo, I remember Emma Lazarus’ words on the Statue of Liberty: “Give us your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

May the door be opened unto them. Bienvenido!