The topic of immigration for the United States of America began in 1607, and despite any conclusion, we come to today- the topic will remain the hottest button on America's three-piece suit. The conversation of policy and platform is more than likely a negative conversation at any restaurant or bar, though the American immigration policy was and never is entirely bad. It gave us Maria.

She greets the front door strangers like there is no one in the world too bad to be let in, and asks "how are you?" assuming the role of the German mother you never had. She is a seamstress, a tailor. If you've come for alterations, which was the most common reason to visit, she would lead you to her dainty workspace, made up of old wood and it smelled like baby powder. She treated it like fine china. It was what she had, it was what she loved. She made a living by this trade, however, she found her life in the visitors. She got to meet, greet, and replete. She wielded her scissors and cut the bottom of my dress, like she was wrapping a present, and began telling her stories in a subtle daze.

I asked Maria what she does when she is not cutting dresses and sewing patches, and she explained her love for baking. Maria seemed like a woman of many trades, and I was right. She was known for her rum cake. She told us she bakes for her Priest at church, though she had to cut back. "Cut back on rum cake? Why would you do that??" I thought to myself, but before I could even start to ask she says in the light accent- "I have to cut back because the priest was getting too far from them. He asked me to take his robes out an inch or two, and of course, I did it. It was all my cake." Maria reminded herself how funny she is, and she laughed.

I never thought about a bishops weight gain and how he would have to accommodate, or who is there to help him. Maria's story was not only about the humor in life, it was about all the things that went unnoticed too. Later, we found out that Maria used to alter wedding dresses- to which she was once asked, "Do you ever get scared of altering something so important?" Maria said, "No, I just do it." She was a woman of many words.

German seamstress Maria did what she had to make her way in the United States, and she is successful. She is successful not only in her career but also at being an addition to our community. She knows the meaning of sacrifice and sensible. Without Maria in the states, my dress would be three inches long, the priest would be three inches skinnier, and there would be three million fewer stories in the world to laugh about.