Margarita shares her views on the inequality, poverty, and exclusion that led rural Salvadorans to organize.
- Interviewee:
- Margarita
Transcription
[In your opinion, why did the people start to organize?]
Well, because there was a need to, because we didn’t have any land to work on. Every day it became harder to afford our basic food requirements, for example. And for someone who doesn’t work—who isn’t a professional, who works the land—it’s a very hard life. So I think that’s the reason that led us to organize. When we worked on the coffee plantations, they would exploit us so much. They would give us tortillas as if we were pets. They were spoiled, just that and beans. Sometimes there were even dead mice in the beans. In the meantime, they just got richer and richer, while we endured cold, endured hunger, and ate food that wasn’t decent. So I think all of that led us to organize, to try to change those things.