by John Gibler
Tzompaxtle: If you were to tell something else from those same years that marked your life, sad or happy . . .
Nube: I wish that my mom had always been with us. That she never . . . Every time she had to leave to work I wanted to go with her. I didn’t want to stay with my grandfather. He also loved me, but I wanted to be with her. I didn’t want her to leave. I think that is something that always marked me.
Tzompaxtle: Her absence?
Nube: Yes. She would leave to work for two or three months, depending on the season and the harvests. Whether it was coffee or sugarcane.
Tzompaxtle: So, she emigrated to . . .
Nube: Uh-huh.
Tzompaxtle: Filling the roles of . . .
Nube: Of father and mother. My mom was the one who taught me to sharpen a machete, to work in the milpa. More than my grandmother, it was my mom. That is what marked me. I’ll never forget that she wasn’t there. But it also made me so happy when she came back. She’d bring food. We liked her to bring us peanuts or some fruit that was different from what grew around us. I waited for her with so much joy. I think all of that is what I’ll never forget.
Tzompaxtle: And, after your childhood, what happened?
Nube: I finished elementary school. I went to a boarding school. I cried so much when I went there.
Tzompaxtle: And what happened after that?
Nube: Before finishing elementary school, in the fifth grade, I went to the city with a school administrator (ecónoma). We called her teacher, but she wasn’t really a teacher. She was someone who prepared food for us to eat at the school. But we also learned from her, and she would put us to work. We’d go out to gather firewood in groups. They’d make us tutor others, make the beds, bathe, sweep. What else? They also formed commissions and sent us to make tortillas (like governors, who say they form commissions, no?). In our commission we’d make tortillas and go bring water. Other groups cleaned, for example. Some would grind the nixtamal*** and others would make the tortillas. This wasn’t always hard; it had its fun side too. After a time, I liked being there. The administrator (ecónoma) said that she had been to Mexico City. One day I told her: “Ay, how exciting, I want to go, I want to visit that city.” And she said to me: “Well then, you go and work there.” And so I went with her to the city. I think I just worked for the two months of vacation; I worked with some people that she knew; she sent me to them. No, it was like twenty days. And, what did I do? I’d make the beds—the woman of the house taught me how—but I didn’t understand much because I didn’t speak Spanish. I spoke Náhuatl. I barely spoke my own language and that woman—I think her name was Graciela, or if she is still alive, her name is Graciela—would teach me things, saying: “No, this is called this. You say it like this and you talk this way. Call things by their names.”
I cried a lot, every night. I wanted to see my mom. I closed my eyes and I couldn’t see her. Even though I was used to getting through days at a time without her. Mountains, cities, and highways separated us. I couldn’t see her. Moreover, I couldn’t see any of my people, people from my pueblo. But I had also said that I wasn’t going to go back, that I wanted to go to the city and work and learn. But, unfortunately, when I wanted to study no one gave me permission. They told me: “No, you have to work. You don’t have any time.” That was unjust to me. I started losing my initiative, but I enrolled to study first aid and nursing on Sundays.
I met some women friends who told me, “There is a school where I study on Sundays; it is really cool and you learn, they teach you.” I liked it, and since I already knew how to give injections, I wanted to learn how to put an IV in someone. It was also really excellent for me because I also wanted to continue studying middle school. They accepted me having only completed elementary school to start learning first aid and nursing. I really liked that. I mean, I wanted to learn and they accepted me. I started and I completed the course. Afterward I started working in what I enjoyed: I became a caretaker for children and the elderly, even though the pay was only so-so. Before that, for example, when I didn’t know how to do anything, there was a lot of humiliation. When you work as a domestic worker they humiliate you.
There are good people, but you don’t always get to deal with them. People humiliate you for being indigenous and because you don’t understand what they are telling you. That is also humiliating. Or they call you “Indian.” That didn’t offend me, being Indian. On the contrary, I’m very proud to be Indian. If someone says that to me, thanks, I don’t forget my roots.
But I saw that there were always injustices. There was no equality. All that stuff they tell you on television, that everyone is good: that didn’t exist. That isn’t true. It hurts to see the hunger, the injustices. And so I realized that if you live in a big city it isn’t true that you live better. Cities aren’t like they tell you in the books. You don’t see everyone happy and wearing shoes. You see children in the street. Children without food to eat. Children who are not well at all.
And you ask: why? I asked myself that. Why is this like it is if I’m living in the big city? Why is there still hunger? If people go hungry there, it’s because there aren’t jobs. Even though supposedly that shouldn’t happen in the city. On the news they say that everyone has jobs, everyone eats well, everyone lives well, and you go out into the street and see that it isn’t true, that it’s a big lie. You see how they humiliate people. I remember working in a store where they sent a man to prison for stealing. He was taking something to eat because he didn’t have any money. And the woman who did the accounting would tell him: “At the end of the week when the boss pays you, then you can pay me what you owe.” And they would do that, but the boss caught him and sent him to prison saying that he was stealing. But he wasn’t stealing, he was going to pay.
So you want to tell him: “If he was going to pay you he wasn’t stealing.” But the owner didn’t want to lose one cent. They don’t care if your family is dying of hunger. No. They have to make money every day. They don’t have any reason to lose their interests. I was indignant to see that and even though the other workers said, “Look, we’ll put the money together amongst us and pay you.” Despite all that, the owner sent him to prison. I don’t know how many years they gave him, but I do know that he went to prison.
That is not okay. How do you explain it when someone steals more and goes free, or steals much more and gets off with a good lawyer? That’s how I learned the way that lawyers work, how they bribe people.
Things aren’t like they tell us in stories or like the government officials say: “Nothing’s wrong, nothing’s happening.” You are indignant. You start to feel. . . it’s a kind of powerlessness, you don’t know what to do, whom to tell. We all know it but nobody wants to stick their hands in the fire, nobody wants to say: “This is wrong.” That’s when I woke up. You start looking for, I don’t know, for what you should do. I mean, if you have a bit of feeling and humanism. I met some people who weren’t either really rich or really poor, but who had a degree of preparation, and I followed them. They also started to say: “This is wrong, this shouldn’t be like this, this shouldn’t be happening. How is it possible for people to live like this?” And so you say: “You know, I have the same feelings, I think the same way.” And that is what leads you to . . . I mean, you get indignant. And so you start getting involved, no?
Tzompaxtle: Yeah . . . It is really a matter of lived experience . . .
Nube: Of what one sees. No one can tell you: “Hey, come with me, do this.” You think for yourself: “This can’t go on.” If you don’t want to act, no one can force you to do so. It is something so real, the indignation, seeing mistreatment, the indignation of seeing how a handful live better. That is not just.
You say: “How is it possible that no one does anything and everything stays the same, the streets, the poverty, the hunger, the barefoot children in the mountains?” I mean, I lived that, I know what hunger is: You don’t eat and you go to sleep without having eaten. These days the
y say that a pregnant woman should be well nourished, that she should take certain things, but that is marketing, nothing else. It is like saying: “Look at all we the government officials do, we give you all this, but you all just don’t take it.” But that is not true, not everyone has such things within their reach. Otherwise no one would be poor. Everyone would be okay, would have work. No. Something is wrong. Something isn’t right or isn’t working.
Tzompaxtle: And how were you able get involved in the struggle?
Nube: How? Well, because you meet people who think the same way, they have a bit of feelings, they have . . . how to say this with different words? They have some dignity, values. There are people who after everything, after the hunger, destitution, cold, after all that, keep thinking like you do, but they don’t do anything. No one does anything. Everything stays the same. When you meet these people who think like you do and they have some sensitivity, you say: “Well, here they think like I do; I’m not the only one.” You realize that there are more and more people.
Tzompaxtle: What did it mean to you to make the decision, to change your life? Because joining the struggle meant breaking with a way of life.
Nube: Let’s say a tradition.
Tzompaxtle: What did you feel? What emotions, fears, doubts? What . . . ? What challenges did you face, especially as a woman?
Nube: Doubts? No. Because I knew what I wanted. Fear? Well, I think all humans feel some fear. I don’t think anyone isn’t afraid. When you come into this and you learn that someone was tortured, even if they haven’t done anything, but they get tortured . . .
But maybe it is worth it being here. Because living another thousand years like this, like always, without doing anything? There is no justice in that.
It upsets me seeing how other children suffer like I did. It upsets me to see that. I don’t like it. I’d like to see a world that is more . . . more wonderful. A world without hunger, where we’d all see each other as equals, where the wealthy wouldn’t just accumulate their money only thinking of themselves. A more just world. That people would have better salaries, that they could live better. But no one does this, no? I mean, the businesspeople. They don’t like losing. They constantly amass their money and they don’t care if you have a family, if you have something to eat, if you have clothes to wear. We are a Third World country. There are members of Congress who say: “You know, I guess people just like living like that.” I’ve always heard that.
Another thing that marked me when I entered into the struggle was when I worked in a house—the third one—and one Christmas they told the story that they called “the Christmas spirit.” They told their children and their employees why poor people don’t have any money. “They don’t have any money because they spend it. They spend it all; they spend everything they earn.” And that people who are poor should thank them because they give us jobs. Because that is how God wanted it to be. That is what they said. More than the others, I remember that their daughter really marked me. I remember how she answered them: “Mom, that’s not true. My dad pays his employees very little, and they can’t live on the small amount of money they earn. They can’t afford to study, a car, or pay rent. We do have a big house, we have servants, we have nannies, we have people who take care of us. But do you think dad’s employees could have a house just like ours?” And I remember how her mother got angry and told her, “Shut up or I’ll send you to your room! You shouldn’t be talking, remember that all the servants are here.”
And so you think: “They think they are saviors because the give people jobs. But since we don’t know how to save, we spend everything. But how much do they pay you? How much do you make? And that’s when you start to really dislike like rich people. And they believe that we don’t even think, that we are worthless, and that’s another humiliation. That’s when you get more indignant and you think, “I can’t be hearing this, they can’t be saying this in front of me. And I can’t do anything. I can’t say that their daughter is telling the truth, that they pay me a pittance.” You keep quiet even though you don’t like it. If her daughter is confronting her and telling her the truth, it’s because it is true. She just told the pure truth, but the woman says: “No. God sent us to take care of them, to give them work.” And so you ask yourself: what work? They exploit you, and either they don’t pay you or they pay you a pittance. And on top of it all they want you to live better or to save up. But how can you save if you can’t even go to the supermarket to buy what you need with what they pay you?
You can’t live like that. A person can’t live like that. It is impossible.
Tzompaxtle: How old was the daughter?
Nube: She was . . . sixteen.
Tzompaxlte: Once you were inside, how did you feel?
Nube: Awful. I wanted to run and tell her that, I wanted to tell her that she was a . . .
Tzompaxtle: No, I mean, once you were inside . . . [the guerrilla organization].
Nube: Ah, here. How did I feel? Good, and I saw things . . . I saw that there is equality, that it doesn’t matter if you’re a woman or man. They treat you the same way. They share things. If food is short, everyone eats the same amount. That is what unites you, no? That is what unites you as a human, as a living being, who must protect itself from many things. Not just protect people and protect children from hunger, but also to take care of nature, not destroy it, plunder it, or sell it. What you learn as a child: that one shouldn’t exploit the land too much. And then you see that the businessman just comes to exploit human beings, and our lands . . .
There is enough money for the pueblos to live better. But no . . . they plunder it. They bring Chinese, gringo, and Canadian corporations.
[It seems as if the recording pauses here. When it continues, Nube is talking about falling in love.]
Nube: Falling in love is having children, it is part of life. Well, that’s how I see it: It is part of who we are. It’s amazing when you meet someone who thinks like you do. It makes you feel good. And if it’s also a person who reads, who doesn’t smoke, who isn’t a drunk. Since I was a girl I always thought that I’d never be able to marry a drunk, nor an abusive husband, whether physically or mentally abusive. I believe that my ancestors heard me. With couples there are always difficulties, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love my partner, or the person I live with. I could have lived without it, but it happened and it is . . . it can’t be denied. Here we are.
Tzompaxtle: How did they tell you?
Nube: That I had to pack my things, that I had to go. I didn’t know what had happened. They didn’t tell me right at that moment. I could sense that something had happened, but I didn’t know what.
When they tell you: “Let’s go, come on, you have to leave from there,” you know that something could have happened. Or when you ask where the person is and they answer: “He’s over there,” or “He’s fine.” And you’re there, unable to do anything.
You already know what can happen: They can disappear you, kill you, torture you. And it isn’t just you who knows it, everyone knows it. And even though you’re conscious that it can happen at any time, no one wants it to.
That is what came into my mind. If something happened to him, I can’t give up. I can’t quit, nor feel ashamed: I can’t tell the government: “I regret it.”
Whoever had my husband in their hands was already torturing him, because that is what happens. When someone falls into enemy hands, there is always torture, beatings, even more so when the person is disappeared. If they “appear” the person one or two days later, then it is easier because you know that the person could be in prison. I said to myself: “He has to appear, and if they arrest him, then let him be judged for what he has done. What is his crime? Well, what he did.” But he was disappeared and they never arrested him. The pain is so, so intense. It hurt, but I never thought about giving up the struggle. I never thought about leaving. Because that would be saying that the people who have him in their hands are right.
You
think that he’s already gone through something, and you really want them to present him, to judge him, as it should be. Those are the prisoner’s rights. If they have him, they should say, “We have him here.”
I don’t see that he’s done anything that bad; he didn’t kill anyone, he didn’t do anything. It is not bad to protest, to think about others. It means that you have values, dignity, but not everyone does. The majority of people do things, but to benefit themselves. That hurts. And maybe it begins to scar, and those scars remain always. You’ll never be able to forget them. Can you heal 100 percent? No. You always think that it will happen again.
I don’t regret anything. We are not—as they call us—criminals. We are not part of organized crime. No. We are here for a reason. For equality, no?
Tzompaxtle: What did you live through during the months when he was disappeared? What did you feel?
Nube: With the pain of thinking that I’d never see him again. It is a terrible thing. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. No . . . there are no words for it . . . I don’t know how to say it because it is something that hurts too much, not knowing where he is, or how he is. You can’t sleep. You can’t rest. You are always thinking about the same thing. In every instant. It is inexplicable to me. It would have been so different to have known that he was in prison, because then you wait for him to be judged and sentenced.