Immigrant construction workers are often responsible for building offices and skyscrapers in Nashville, though they rarely get credit. But in a small way, a new mural on Nolensville Pike will show their stamp on the city.

Armando Arzate is a construction worker, and now he’s a poet too. He and other workers wrote a poem in Spanish for the mural.

It translates to:

Dark rain on our night boots,
our brown blood covers the earth in the heat of the day.
We cross the borders of the world to give you everything.
Long live the dignity of the migrant.

It celebrates the length that workers like him will go to to do work that is often overlooked.

The poem was written with the help of the group Workers Dignity, and the artist Joe Nolan.

“I think, I hope and I trust, truly, that many people will see it and focus more on the reality that hispanic people and Latino people, we’re here!” Arzate says in Spanish. “We are a very important part of the community. We are growing Nashville.”

He say that message is especially meaningful now, after the pandemic’s toll on essential workers like him.

Courtesy of Metro Arts Commission

This Spanish-language poem will appear in a new mural along Nolensville Pike. It is being painted Monday.