Pedro Lopez was born in Brooklyn, New York to immigrant parents who fled to the United States from Nicaragua during the Sandinista revolution. As a child and well into manhood, Pedro only ever spoke to his parents in spanish, and although he was born in Brooklyn, and after a lifetime of doing so, he acquired an accent similar to that of his father. Mr. Lopez works hard to provide for his family delivering large plants from a large family-owned nursery to large corporate parties in and around the city. He has held onto this job since he was in his teens working during the weekends, weeding and pruning, to help to support his family. He learned everything about the business including learning the names of hundreds of species of plants and flowers, the conditions in which they thrive, and their proper care and handling. He is highly regarded as an expert by his employer and customers and is happy to take a phone call on his time off to handle the questions and concerns of his customers. After his high school graduation, he became a full-time employee and has remained with the business ever since. After a hard day of working on the truck, he anticipates coming home to his family immediately after work. There is no stopping for a beer with the boys from work for Pedro.
Maria Lopez is a third generation Cuban-American, her great grandparents arriving on American shores in the late 19th century with the cigar industry shortly before the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. Mrs. Lopez and their two children are his world, and there is no place that he would rather be than at home with them.
Pedrito and Sofia are good students, fluent in english and very Americanized. Pedrito is the studious one. He enjoys going to school where he is on the school's basketball team. He is an avid reader with a particular fondness for American History. So passionate is he about the history of America's founding, that this year, he auditioned for a role in the school's Thanksgiving Pageant as a pilgrim. Impressed by his performance, the event organizers asked Pedrito if he would like to portray George Washington's father in a special presentation for President's Day. He accepted and performed spectacularly with a near-authentic British accent surprising everyone. Mrs. Lopez had dutifully and enthusiastically fashioned his costumes in great detail referring illustrations from his American History textbook for the most minute detail.
Sofia is a social butterfly. Being one year younger than Pedrito, she is one grade below him at school, but she is not as studious. She completes her assignments and maintains good grades, but her interests lie elsewhere. She is an attractive young lady and she is well aware of it. She resembles her mother with her olive skin, long black hair and intense gaze. Her fingernails are always immaculately shaped and polished - and they should be because that is what she is concentrating on when she is sitting in the back of the classroom while the teacher is lecturing. She is a bit of a flirt and knows how to skillfully use it to ensure that she never has to carry her own books, open a door or lack the funds that is needed when she sees a little trinket or bauble that she likes... but she is a good girl with high moral values. Papa doesn't have to worry about her since brother Pedrito is always nearby to keep a protective eye on her.
The siblings listen to contemporary popular American music, speak to their friends and junior high school classmates about ordinary American things that ordinary American kids talk about in plain American english peppered with some popular slang.
This particular evening, after dinner, they are gathered as a family in the living room watching television. The talking head on the tube is announcing the arrival of the President of the United States who is about to deliver a speech to the American people about an immigration reform bill on which he has worked tirelessly with senators to protect immigrants only to find the opposing party continuously attempting to block the bill. The Lopez family still have living relatives in their respective ancestral countries and immigration reform is a topic that is discussed frequently among the family. How nice it would be if Abuelita Josie, born Josephina in El Salvador, could come to live with them in America. The López's make sure that they vote in every election, supporting pro-immigration candidates in hopes that one day the right candidate will assume high office and pass laws that will allow for less restrictive travel and more frequent family reunions. Mr. Lopez is reading the newspaper and enjoying his cigar while Mrs. Lopez tends to the after-dinner cleanup duties. Sofia is curled up in a corner in a pink bathrobe and her hair in rollers filing her nails. Pedrito is playing noisily with the family's Maltese dog, Fellini. The Lopez family is the quintessential American nuclear family achieving the American Dream!
Every member of the Lopez family have the latest models of cellphones with all of the necessary apps installed. They paly games and text their friends - it is quite possible that they have never had an actual conversation on the phones. But they are a conscientious family. They happen to have on the credenza, a landline telephone. Mr. and Mrs. Lopez decided that it would be wise to keep their landline even after the advent of the cellphone in case of an emergency. Smart! This is a telephone that never rings unless it is a telemarketer or Abuela Josie who only calls on holidays from her landline in El Salvador. She is from the Ma Bell generation and never quite found her way into the current world of modern portable communication devices. The sound of their telephone ringing is so infrequent that they tend to forget what the ring sounds like.
Suddenly...
...the telephone rings...
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