He sits quietly, nursing a bad knee
and listening to the sounds of work
on the roof and in the condo below.
He looks out his sliding door at the
workers atop the next building
removing with surgical precision
the worn tiles and deteriorating
cement. He respects their dexterity,
all the more since his new ailment,
and worries about their safety as
they bend over and step over loose
tiles and debris. He then looks at
their faces and the color of their
skin and realizes they are not so
very young, not so much younger than
he. They do what they do, hard, back-
breaking, joint aching, dangerous
work because that is what they have
to do. They go home to Spanish rice,
hot tamales, menudo soup, cold beer
and their children who leave each
morning as they do but for places
like Arizona State and Phoenix
College and the various technical
schools throughout the city while
their dads climb back up to the hot
roofs in the desert. It’s what
they do and he thinks about his
immigrant grandfather steelworker
and he celebrates their spirit.
bobdahl 
You really caught the mood of the immigrants willing to sacrifice for a better life for the kids! Most of the immigrants I know are doing exactly this while periodically losing their employment. The boss treats immigrants [legal and illegal] as spare parts, useful at times and stored when not needed. The construction fields are notorious in pushing the workers for all they can, then telling them to go home when business slows.
It reminds one of the time Henry Ford, who had attracted so many from the South to Michigan, told the workers to go home for a year while he transitioned from Model A to Model T [or some such change].
Powerful … and I can only agree with Berbiglia’s comment …