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Un homenaje a lxs trabajadorxs del hogar y el mantenimiento desde prácticas artísticas, el cine, la literatura...






Journeys: El Paso / Juárez

Benjamín Alire Sáenz
Poema
Estados Unidos, México
1991
Este poema aparece en el libro Calendar Of Dust. A pesar de que l trabajo del hogar en la ciudad binacional de Juárez-El Paso es una cotidianidad para miles de personas. A veces pareciera ser sorprendentemente nuevo en la representación, en la literatura. Sáenz 


Journeys

El Paso/Juárez

1984
 Every day she crosses. She
 has been here before, has passed these streets
 so often she no longer notices the shops
 nor their names nor the people. No longer
 notices the officials at the bridge who let her
 pass as if she were going shopping. They know
 her, know where she's going, do not ask questions.
 They have stopped smiling at each other.
 Each morning she walks from her
 Juárez home, crosses the bridge to El Paso.
 Downtown, she waits for a bus that takes her
 to a house where she irons and cleans and cooks.
 She is not afraid to get caught. The Border
 Patrol does not stop her as she waits for
 the bus after work. They know what she does,
 know she has no permit —but how would it look
 arresting decent people's maids? How
 would it look? And besides, she's a woman
 getting old. The Migra prefers to chase
 young men. She no longer notices their green
 vans. They do not exist for her.
 Nor she, for them.

She does not mind the daily journeys,
 not far, and "really," she says to herself,
 "it is all one city, Juárez and El Paso.
The river is small and tired. A Ha!"
 She sits, she laughs, she catches her bus to go home.

The woman whose house she cleans
 asked her once if she wanted to be an American.
 "No," she smiled, "I'm happy." What for,
she thought, what for? My children, they want
to live here. Not me. I belong in my Juárez.

She cooks, she cleans, she takes her bus. 
She journeys every day. The journey is easy,
never takes a long time, and always it is sunny.
When it rains, the people who live here
 praise God —but she, she curses him
 for the spit that soaks her skin.