Categoría: Inglés

Translated  by Marvin Najarro  When listening to Luna de Xelajú, the chirimía and the tum, or when marveling at the gigantic kites of Santiago Sacatepéquez we experience a feeling of nostalgia. When the aboriginal peoples’ multicolored clothes leave us speechless, stunned, suddenly a certain something takes hold of us, akin to a kind of pride for a multicultural Guatemala; it’s what we export: something called folklore. The indigenous peoples are used for that, to be the folklore of Guatemala before the world. Those designs embroidered on pieces of clothing worn by the indigenous peoples are seen in blankets, napkins, wallets,…

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro  They made us believe that progress is in cement; that cement is progress. They made us believe that industrialization means prosperity of societies. That in order to industrialize, deforestation has to be ruthlessly implemented and entire peoples destroyed: stealing their water, land, food and any vital means of subsistence. These peoples, we were told, do not matter, and if they resist, they must be eliminated by sheer repression, that’s the reason of genocides that afflict the collective memory. They told us that civilization is a necessary concept for the survival of humanity, and that we the…

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro  No trace must remain of progressive Latin America, no trace of the Niño Arañero, Néstor, Lula, Dilma; no trace of Evo, Correa, Maduro; no trace of Mujica, Lugo, Manuel Zelaya. And of course, no trace of Cristina. And let there be no doubt that they will also try to destroy López Obrador  – destroy the leaders in order to destroy the people; destroy Historical Memory, because by eliminating the root there is no offspring, and the powerless peoples become puppets and an amorphous mass obedient to the criminal oligarchy of Latin American and the world.  In order…

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro   In the United States, the issue of racism and xenophobia is not new; the North American Native Peoples say it was used against them by the invaders, while carrying out the biggest genocide in history and later when they were confined in prisons to which they gave the name of reservations.  The thousands undocumented Chinese who were used to build the San Francisco Bridge could talk about the issue of racism. Afro-descendants could speak about the time of slavery, and the invasion of the African continent. They could talk from the prisons, the parks, public spaces,…

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro    The most recent example of what treason means to a people is currently being experienced in Ecuador, which trusted Lenin Moreno and chose him as its president thanks to Rafael Correa’s courage who honored him with his support at a critical moment for all of Latin America. But neither Correa nor the Latin American peoples ever imagined that he would be the region’s big traitor of the last hundred years, and that with all his hatred and pettiness (because he knows very well that he will never be even the shadow of Correa’s shoes) he…

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro    Two sisters countries, Afro descendants, with a mixture from the immense amount of slaves brought by the kingdoms of France, Spain, the Dutch and Anglo corsairs for five centuries. Two countries that share an island in the middle of the sea, with the same social fabric, and language as the only difference: in the Dominican Republic the Spanish is spoken while Creole in Haiti.   Both countries impoverished, invaded, plundered and dominated by mafias that have taken over the governments for decades. Oligarchies that reproduce hatred, racism and exclusion for their own benefit; which enslave…

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro    The most visible imprint of the dictatorships imposed by the United States in Latin America can be seen every day in the thousands of migrants who are forced to leave their own countries trying to save their lives, and obtain shelter and food in the United States, which is presented by the experts in deception as the mecca, as the water that quench thirst; like the dreamland where all dreams come true.   A Latin America impoverished by post dictatorship neoliberal governments, made up of corrupt and mobs of looters who have created drug and…

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro  Since humanity’s early days, history has been trampled on by patriarchal, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, classist, and xenophobic beings and, in the particular case of Latin America, colonized minds have been in charge of disregarding women like Evita who never fit into the patriarchal yoke, and who were never seduced by the honey of power, and on the contrary, were their greatest critics. Evita is the poetry of the rebellion of the peoples. The patriarchy, which knows no ideology places her in history as a passionate being; it has never seen her as an intellectual being with…

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro  In 1958, the chronicler and poet of the favela, Carolina Maria de Jesus was discovered almost by chance and in her own habitat; she dedicated herself to portray in her diary her day to day life in the favelas of Brazil: A harsh reality, of misery, abuse, exclusion and, a reality, too, of dreams, loyalty and sheer love. Little known in Latin America, Carolina Maria de Jesus captured in her writings the essence of the Brazilian slums; the same which in a display of rapturous love have taken to the streets to defend a worker who…

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro  The housemaid will continue to be a housemaid, without labor benefits or human rights. All day, humiliated, in the shit. The female day laborer will continue to be a female day laborer, excluded and abused, toiling from sunrise to sunset, 7 days a week. To the sheds where they sleep on the floor feminism doesn’t come in. The female sweatshop worker will continue to rot in a factory, without the right to go to the bathroom during work hours -117 years after the feminicide of 123 workers in that factory in New York.

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro  A few days ago, Marco Rubio a US republican senator of Cuban descent wrote in his twitter account: “The world would support the Armed Forces in Venezuela if they decide to protect their people and restore democracy by removing a dictator (of power).” That’s all he is craving for. Now, let us imagine someone like Diosdado Cabello writing something similar but in regard to the United States, or Nicolás Maduro himself, how do you think the United States would react?

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro  They think that there is no spirit left, that they have been able to pulverize the yearnings, and uprooted the saffron from the field. They think they have left the trees barkless, helpless on eroded land. They believe that everything is an avalanche. But every wild cypress tree, sprouting up in the rocks, shows them the opposite. They think that they have silenced the song of the goldfinch, but the flocks crossing the horizon show them that there are trills impossible to kill and that there are beauties and dazzling liberties that no hatred can obscure.

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro  South Chicago is a symbol of decay; it is a great city collapsing, deteriorated streets, buildings about to collapse on the heads of the tenants who, in their vast majority are Afro descendants and undocumented Latin Americans: Mexicans and Central Americans badly paid, exploited in their jobs, stigmatized and constantly harassed by police. South Chicago seems like a science fiction movie; those futuristic movies that show the end of humanity. Very similar to the decay of the border towns between Mexico and the United States where the only things that abound there are bullets, bars, kidnappings,…

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro  Every time a video of US police violence against Afro-descendants comes to light, the news spreads like wildfire and goes around the world. Then the stigmatization starts on social networks; with repudiation and double standards. But I live in the United States, and I have seen how Asians discriminate against blacks and Latinos alike or how Latinos discriminate against Asians and blacks; or how blacks discriminate against Asians and Latinos. A black, a Latino, an Asian, and a European can be as racist as an Anglo-Saxon can be; but why? Because racism, like gender violence, homophobia,…

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