El modesto misterio

Unidentified Female Immigrant (71)

By: Patricia Guerrero

I know nothing of the woman I’ve have been assigned to write about. I do not know her name, her age, where she came from, if she was young or old, child or women. I only know that her body was found next to 71 other bodies in a miserable ranch north of Tamaulipas, that she was probably Central American, and that she’s one of thousands of immigrants that have encountered death when traveling this country. It hurts and shames me her death unspeakably, and since the knees of my words weaken when talking about this, I would simply like to dedicate this song to her that I’ve liked ever since it made me cry when I was a child, in the faraway lands of the United States:

¡Que lejos estoy del suelo donde he nacido! Inmensa nostalgia invade mi pensamiento. Y al ver me tan solo y triste cual hoja al viento, Quisiera llorar, quisiera morir de sentimiento.

“How far away am I from the ground where I was born! Immense longing invades my thought. And seeing myself alone and dreary like a leaf in the wind, I would like to mourn, I would like to die from this feeling.”

I’m very sorry.