Translated by Marvin Najarro I remember, as a child, when after selling ice creams at the market on weekends, I returned home at two o’clock in the afternoon, (at 12:30 a.m. on weekdays, because I had to go to school at 1 o’clock) and set out with my friends, each of us with a bag, to collect trash from house to house to go dump it at the ravine; we were paid 25 cents for a bag.
Translated by Marvin Najarro We are a hair breadth away of an invasion by the United States and its pack against Venezuela. The first to provide an open corridor by land, sea and air will be Brazil, Colombia and Argentina; their rulers are already on all fours. Did anybody believe Juan Manuel Santos’ tale of The Peace (La Paz)? They will go with their rusty tanks to shell their brothers. The media war is colossal; a great deal of distorted information has been created to guarantee the manipulation of the lukewarm. Because when it comes to defend the peoples sovereignty…
Translated by Marvin Najarro It would have been so easy for Cristina the following day after finishing her presidential term in Argentina, to grab her odds and sods, and go abroad; after all, as the head of the government, she had fulfilled with what it was expected from her. Dilma would have done the same thing after the coup d’état against her; the easiest thing to do, to leave and not to look back. But they both stayed and not to be idle, the same as Lula who has been indefatigable. As political beings, and at a time when most…
Translated by Marvin Najarro The north is not always the United States, the north, for migrants and displaced people is a distant place where they go in search of a utopia. Forced by the circumstances which are the result of the ineffectiveness of a state, an historical oppressive system, and an inhuman and insensitive society. Pushed by the circumstances they migrate from the town to the capital or to another country, and these change their lives. Since the moment they step out their nests, they will never be the same again. Something breaks up, something so valuable and intimate which…
Translated by Marvin Najarro Since the beginning the patriarchal system has imposed upon us the way we should walk or sit, everything regarding the role of gender, not to mention behaviors since they come in categories according to stereotypes and prejudices; by upbringing patterns or because we as grownups chose to register them to our own convenience. In this life there is nothing more damaging than the sexist and misogynist patriarchal pattern which has been exacted upon us as a society. Potential mother, proclaim the Mother’s Day greetings to women who do not have children, as if all women, by…
Translated by Marvin Najarro At this time in any street, bar, corner, home and brushwood of Latin America, a girl, a teenager and a woman is being raped, in the next five minutes dozens more will be abused, by noon will be hundreds and by the evening, thousands . Most of them will be beaten, many murdered in hate crimes, some will disappear and nothing will ever be known about them, possibly they will die in the hells of human trafficking, and of others their bodies will appear dismembered in any street, in a garbage bag or a sack. Of those…
Mis amores, hoy les quiero compartir que mi relato “El oficio de sirvienta” fue publicado en el Reino Unido. Dejo aquí la traducción al inglés y el enlace al portal donde lo publicaron. Fue una grata sorpresa. Traducido por Freedom Anarchist Media The author, who grew up selling ice-cream on the streets of Peronia city, Guatemala, before crossing to the US as an undocumented migrant, writes on the life of the maid. Lately human rights defenders have called us “domestic workers,” to lessen the blow, but things should be called by their name: We are servants, our job is to…
Translated by Marvin Najarro Transgressed (Transgredidas), has been one of the most difficult books for me to write, it has hurt me, I have cried and I have felt it in flesh and blood, because it is the accounts of testimonies and stories of girls, adolescents and women who have suffered sexual abuse, either as undocumented migrants in their way to the United States, or as victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation purposes. Abused by relatives and strangers, not because of their origin or their social class, but because they are women in a society that disrespects and devalues women…
Translated by Marvin Najarro As of late human rights defenders call us domestic helpers, to lessen the blow, but call a spade a spade: we are maidservants, our function is to serve. From there on, we can break down the gamut of abuses experienced for those of us who work in domestic service and maintenance. No matter the country, the reality of the servants is the same everywhere. We are not going to feign innocence, and to point an accusing finger at the United States as the cause of all our ills. In India, there are castes, in Latin America,…
No se puede pensar en la Venezuela del presente sin que su progreso vaya de la mano con el Niño Arañero. Partiendo de ahí, la Revolución del pueblo venezolano es Bolivariana y Chavista. Es la Revolución de los arrabales y las hondonadas, del llano y de los cerros olvidados a los que Chávez nombró y visibilizó. A los que el Niño Arañero dignificó. Es pues, la Revolución de un paria por los parias, si llamamos a las cosas por su nombre. Tan profunda y fecunda ha sido que ha resistido los ataques constantes de una oligarquía nauseabunda que busca cortar…
Translated by Marvin Najarro April 8 marked one month since the femicide of 41 Guatemalan girls whom the state of Guatemala raped and burned alive. And also, on April 8 appeared the body of Micaela Garcia, an Argentine girl member of the Evita Movement, who had disappeared a few days ago. Twenty one years old Micaela, was a student of Physical Education, and was very concerned about the outcasts, the black ones, those that classism detests. She was raped and murdered by a serial rapist who was released by a judge because, according to him, all he sufferred was “natural…
Translated by Marvin Najarro In these moments of joy and celebration in Latin America for the triumph of Alianza País, it is necessary to remember that everything in contemporary history began with the illusion of The Niño Arañero, the seller of papaya sweets in the streets of his native Venezuela; I summarize his origin because we are made of Historical Memory and identity. Children like Chávez are born one every five hundred years and they pass through the earth to mark the peoples’ history.
Translated y Marvin Najarro Many of us would rather live in our bubble and close our eyes to reality, remain passive, turn away and remain silent. This in relation to government corruption, and the ineffectiveness of a failed state, to systematic violence and impunity. Influence peddling and manipulation by the media. We prefer to stay at the margins in the face of injustice, because it is more comfortable not to get involved, because getting involved demands respect for oneself and for others, and above all: honesty, responsibility and integrity. And we are not prepared to risk our skin for others,…
