The patrón [landowner] sent us to work and he didn’t care if we died from working. My parents worked very hard, but it was always for the patrón. We didn’t have anything to eat because all our parents’ work was for the patrón. The only thing we had to eat was ground-up chili mixed with corn and water. Sometimes we ate banana roots, or we mixed green bananas in with the corn for the tortillas so it would go further. We often went hungry because we worked very hard, but all the work we did was for the patrón.4
