Categoría: Las Insurrectas

Translated by Katrina Hassan Guillermina leaves the grocery shopping on the table and urgently gets a plum out of one if the the bags. She washes and bites it. It’s juice spills from the sides of her lips. She closes her eyes and thanks the hands that cared for the plant, from seedling until tree. Ever since she was little, her grandparents taught her to appreciate the work of those who cultivate the land. Guillermina who is originally from Parramos, Chimaltenango, Guatemala, hardly spoke anything other than her mother tongue Chakchikel when she arrived in the US. She knew a…

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Translated by Katrina Hassan Last month she got fake eyelashes and dyed her hair platinum blonde, even though she knew she couldn’t hide her mestizo roots. She spent a ton of money on a perm. She saved money for five months in order to curl the straight hair that she inherited from her ancestors. If she could change her oak bark colored skin she would change it for a lighter tone. In reality Milagros would like to look like a Russian or a Polish woman. She likes that skin tone, the slim and tall physique.  She doesn’t want to look…

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Translated by Marvin Najarro The fiesta de quinceañera of her eldest daughter will be celebrated in the night; the excitement has not let her to sleep a wink for the last week. Macarena worked overtime for a year to save money for the fiesta expenses. By video calls she was able to follow the preparations, from family meetings where grandparents, uncles and aunts, nieces and nephews, and close friends were present to the last details in which she had the last word. Macarena wants her daughter’s fiesta to be remembered throughout the town. It is the way she found to embrace her daughter tightly in her…

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