Es una archiva
Un homenaje a lxs trabajadorxs del hogar y el mantenimiento desde prácticas artísticas, el cine, la literatura...
Es una archiva
Un homenaje a lxs trabajadorxs del hogar y el mantenimiento desde prácticas artísticas, el cine, la literatura...
Benjamín Alire Sáenz
Poema
Estados Unidos, México
1991
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.