I was born in 1942 if for some reason my mother
At age five I learned that thirty thousand peasants died because they were hungry.
It was then that I realized that
in my country to be hungry is a crime.
The village where I was born has a bad history.
They say that around 1798
an administrator from the Central Province
had these lands peopled by Spaniards
who, vaunting their lineage,
mounted Indian women and more Indian women
as if going through an endless train.
One of these descendants of the Cid
surprised one of my great-great-grandmothers bathing in the Copinolapa River,
and, with the brusqueness of a centaur,
made her the cornerstone of my family.
José María Cuéllar (1942 - 1981) El Salvador
Translated by Professor Keith Ellis
Source: Zócalo Poets
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