Lucía, una de mis alumnas de primer
semestre de Prepa, estaba radiante de felicidad cuando me contó que un
compañero de clase le había conseguido un empleo para poder llevar alimento a
su casa: Su padre había perdido el trabajo hacía ya un año y su madre se había
ido a la frontera norte para ir en busca del "sueño americano" y
solucionar el problema económico que estaba amenazando su propia
supervivencia. -ya habían pasado seis meses y no tenían noticias de ella;
en casa no había que comer, así que los compañeros de Lucía se turnaban para
comprarle comida.
No bien había terminado de compartir su
alegría conmigo cuando su hermoso rostro moreno se vio ensombrecido por lo que
estaba a punto de comunicarme: Tenía que dejar la escuela, al menos por un año,
el trabajo requería disponibilidad las veinticuatro horas. Traté de persuadirla
para que buscara otro empleo que le permitiera estudiar y trabajar; sin
embargo, estaba decidida: "Prof, paso hambre todo el tiempo porque no hay
comida en casa...ya no lo soporto más". Ella tenía razón, en los últimos
meses, su cuerpo había pasado de ser el de una chica atractiva al de una
persona surgida de un campo de concentración nazi.
Seis meses más tarde, mis alumnos del
curso de inglés en el CCH Naucalpan, me pidieron que los acompañara a un
sepelio doble, ¡cuál sería mi sorpresa al enterarme de que se trataba de Lucía
y su madre! Por una extraña coincidencia, las empresas para la que trabajaban
ambas, Lucía en México y su madre, en la Frontera Norte., las habían
sometido a jornadas agotadoras de doce a dieciocho horas, cosiendo vestidos que
maquilaban para la compañía Primark, madre e hija habían fallecido debido a la
raquítica alimentación que recibían y a la falta de descanso.
Lucy,
one of my high-school students, was immensely happy when she told me that a
fellow-student had just hired her, so she could buy food: Her father had
lost his job and her mother had gone to the north of the country, looking for
the "American dream" to solve their financial situation that was
threatening their lives. Six months have gone by and Lucy did not know
anything about her mother. At her place, there was nothing to eat, so her
school-mates took turns to buy her some food.
Then,
Lucy's beautiful dark-skinned face turned from total joy to a sad expression:
She had to drop out from school if only for a year since her job required to be available 24 hours a day. I tried to
persuade her to look for another position in the company that allowed her to keep on studying, but
she had made up her mind, she said to me: "Teacher, I am hungry all the
time because there is no food at home, I cannot take it any longer". She
was right: Within a year, her body had been transformed by the lack of
food, from an attractive figure to the very image of a person just out
from a Nazi concentration camp.
Six
months later, my English-language students at the "Naucalpan Sciences and
Humanities High-School" asked me to join them for a double funeral. I was
shocked when they told me: Lucy and her mother had died. I asked them why, how.
They said that for a strange coincidence, both had worked for companies, one in
Mexico City and the other up north, that made dresses to be sold to
Primark Enterprises. Mother and daughter had died because of how little food
they were given and due to lack of sleep, they had been practically forced to
work between 12 and 18 hours a day.
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