We Are Indigenous Women, We Are Everyone

Women that live in the night without the light of day,
For their hungry children, homeless, in the rain,
Their children dead.

Women who had to run in the hills,
Carrying their little children, leaving their houses, their pots,
Their beds for the cold of the night.
Fleeing violence, searching for life.

We are displaced women.
We are suffering.
We don’t have houses, food.
We don’t have anything.
Because of this we are in the struggle to look for
Peace, justice and dignity.
We are indigenous women, we are everyone.

Sick women in the hospital – without money,
The doctors don’t treat them.
They are overlooked because they don’t speak Spanish.
Their husbands are not allowed into the room.
Many do not reach the hospital,
Others die inside the hospital,
Lacking care.
We are indigenous women, we are everyone.
Women who defend their villages
So that the army does not enter.
With their words, duties and pride,
Women without guns know how to defend.

Women without rights.
We do not see their faces
Because their husbands do not allow them
To leave the house.
We are indigenous women, we are everyone.

We work together as indigenous women
So that we go forward in our work.
We also think of everyone.
We are indigenous women, we are everyone

-- Women of Corn in Resistance, spring 2000

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