authors:
Rosalma Zubizarreta, Harriet Rohmer,
David
Schechter
from a
poem by Alejandro Cruz Martinez
illustrator:
Fernando Olivera
Children’s
Book Press / Lee & Low, 1991
kindergarten-grade
3
Zapotec
In the The Woman Who Outshone the Sun / La mujer que brillaba aún más que el sol, Lucía
Zenteno arrives at a village, and because of her great beauty and her magical
ways, all the creatures of the earth, air, and water—and the river itself—fall
in love with her. The jealous villagers run her out of town, so she takes the
river with her, leaving only “a serpent of sand.” The villagers find Lucía, the
elders convince them to apologize, and, after a few words about the necessity
of treating everyone with kindness, she returns the water and disappears again,
coming back as a fond memory: “Lucía had not really left them. Though they
would not be able to see her, she would always be there, guiding and protecting
them, helping them to live with love and understanding in their hearts.”
Oaxacan artist
Olivera’s gorgeous oil paintings, saturated in rich, bold colors, are full of
“magic realism,” where fishes and otters swim in and out of Lucía’s hair,
butterflies fly in and out of her skirts, and her sorrow at the behavior of the
villagers is palpable. Olivera’s Zapotecanas are big and beautiful, and his Lucía
is lush and glorious—a dark, zaftig Indian woman, with big hips and big feet, a
Mother Earth figure.
The book, winner
of an Outstanding Children’s Book Award from Parenting Magazine, has garnered
numerous positive reviews praising it for its strong moral message about
kindness and understanding and respect for nature and responsibility for the
earth.
As a long-time
educator, I’m always looking for children’s stories that teach conflict
resolution by encouraging kindness, caring, empathy and respect. So, after the
first reading, I really liked this story. But there was something about it that
made me vaguely uneasy. A second read and a critical look at the copy at the
back of the book made me think more deeply. “Alejandro was killed in 1987,” the
copy said, “while organizing the Zapotecs to regain their lost water rights.”
Why, I wondered, would a water rights activist write a poem about a holy person
who takes away a village’s water?
A few days
later, a colleague gave me a copy of the poem that Cruz Martinez had written,
called “la voz del poeta canta” (“the poet’s voice sings”), which he published
in San Jerónimo Ixtepec, Mexico, in 1984. The only thing that his poem has in
common with the children’s book is the name of its central character. In Cruz
Martinez’s poem, Lucía Zenteno, with her skirt full of butterflies, roams the
land, stealing not only the attention of all the men, but the men themselves.
She has no friends, no morals, and no conscience. She comes to wreak havoc and
bring misery; and when she gets angry, she takes away the river and everything that
depends on water to live. And she doesn’t return. She is that pure evil we warn
our children about and guard our men from.
Last week, I
viewed Maureen Gosling’s excellent film, “Blossoms of Fire,” and all of this
came together for me.
A brief
digression to set Cruz Martinez’ poem into historical context: The Isthmus of
Tehuantepec is one of the most fertile areas in the world and the fact that
it’s an isthmus has left the land accessible to plunder. For at least four
centuries, the Zapotec people here have struggled against colonialism in one
form or another. In 1981, the people of Juchitán successfully challenged the
one-party system of the PRI (Revolutionary Independence Party), which had ruled
for over 60 years, and voted in a progressive party, COCEI (Coalition of
Workers, Peasants and Students of the Isthmus). Under the new government, roads
and schools, clinics and libraries were built, public programs flourished and
there was a cultural flowering. In 1983, to break the power of COCEI, the PRI
sent in repressive forces that openly murdered and disappeared movement
leaders, who became known as “los desaparecidos.” Fighting for the land and
water was their crime, and Alejandro Cruz Martinez was one of the many
casualties of this repression.
This is exactly
what water rights struggles are about: right-wing governments and vulture
capitalists’ diverting the water and effectively killing villages. This happens
all over the world, and the Indigenous peoples rarely, if ever, win. Africa is
rife with this history, over and over; where once were fields full of food for
entire populations, nothing is left but deserts. Nowhere in reality—or in Cruz
Martinez’s poem—does the Zapotec people’s begging and pleading bring back the
water once it’s been stolen. That is what Cruz Martinez died for: the basic
right to life.
There is nothing
real or dignified in Children’s Book Press’s teaching our children about how
Zapotec villagers begged for life-giving water, and then honored the one who
stole it in the first place. Rather, it’s an insult to the memory of Alejandro
Cruz Martinez and the Zapotec members of COCEI who struggled and died for
access to the resources on their own land. The
Woman Who Outshone the Sun is not recommended.
—Judy Zalazar
Drummond
(published 4/6/13; revised 9/9/18)
Note: Below is Alejandro Cruz Martinez's original poem, la voz del poeta canta, and its English translation, The Poet's Voice Sings.
author (English): Harriet Rohmer
