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D e a r p a i s a n o ...
Por: Hortencia Cruz García
Dear Paisano, you who risked your life crossing the
border, walking across the desert for days under the strong
rays of the sun and the freeze air of the night or you who
preferred swimming instead of walking, facing the Río
Grande, as it is known by the gringos, or Río Bravo as we
know it, I have many complaints against you:
Don´t come back to your land asking your children and
grandchildren to forget about the aboriginal language that
for years was spoken by you and your ancestors, the language
that was used by the Quetzatzoatl, Nezahualcoyotl,
Caltzontzin, to pray to the water, the earth, the air,
and the fire Gods.
That
language was spoken by wise people and grandparents,
who spoke to Mother Nature about the sicknesses that were
poisoning the minds and bodies of men and women: ambition,
envy, hate, bitterness. And that same language used
by Mother Nature to teach the humans beings to live in a
simple way: to learn from the wild flowers that are born on
the sunniest days and offer their beauty to anyone who has
the sensitivity to admire it.
Dear
Paisano, you who spent your days picking tomatoes, apples,
grapes on gringos' earth, or you who work as a dishwasher,
loader, or cleaner, I have a favor to ask you, don´t
humiliate your brothers and neighbors who choose to stay in
their small towns instead of paying the price that money
demands: to be far from your family and rent you hands to a
foreigner.
Another thing, don´t despise the music you used to hear as a
teenager, the pirekuas, which keep the feeling of your past
and the voice of people who made up poems listening to the
songs of the birds. Don´t change our pirekuas for music in
English that you yourself don´t understand.
Now
Paisanos I give you a complaint from your wife and your
fiancé: don´t come back to your home looking for the warn
body that you left and in spite of everything, was waiting
for your arrival for so long, if you haven´t taken care of
your body, if you have infected it with AIDS or with another
illness, then you, sooner or later, will pass it along to
your partner.
If
you have a relationship with a sick woman, please don´t
transmit this illness to your wife or your children, who
have the right to live and to breathe as you do.
Regrettably, a lot of kids in the aboriginal communities are
infected by a mortal illness passed on by their own fathers.
I
know that by now you feel sick and tired of reading my
complaints, but I haven´t finish telling them. Some women
have asked me to remind you that they, like the fresh
flowers of spring, need your caresses and your kisses to
live and grow, to get up to the mountains and to talk about
their intimacy to the air, fire, water and earth. Don´t
abandon them and don´t try to replace them by giving then
only green bills that, undeniably, help their economic
necessities but not their sensual necessities.
Dear
Paisano, I am sorry if I behaved very rudely and impolitely
to you with this letter, but I needed to relieve myself and
to let you know the thoughts of your village, sons,
daughters, grandparents, wife, that miss you so much and
that most of the time suffer from your absence and your
changes.
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