Café
Today marks the first day of of the #InktoberLatinxColectivo2020 challenge. Today’s prompt is CAFÉ/COFFEE.
In his youth (1950s-1960s), my father worked on coffee plantations all over El Salvador. He not only got to experience first-hand not only the grueling process of picking coffee, but he also witnessed the exploitation and abuse of indigenous campesinos and ladino workers by cafetaleros and La Guardia. We Salvadorans love our coffee, but seldom do we ever think about how much of our own people’s blood we’re consuming. I leave you with the words of Salvadoran scholar, Dr. Clelia Rodríguez (@clelia.o.rodriguez) from her book, “Decolonizing Academia:
“Thirty-two thousand buried voices scream through my first cup of coffee begging not to be forgotten. Their hands devour the sugar sprinkled over their bloody sweat. They are reduced to living trapped inside packages sold at ‘fair trade’ coffee shops. Their silent screams pour over my white trousers finding comfort in the freshness of recently washed linen. Right away my heart palpitates like the Earth moving along the Central American underground corridors, shaking what is now known as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Without the actual genocide, the coffee that is stained in the color of my skin, I wouldn’t be able to stay awake when I’m supposed to.” (pg. 6)