Transcript

Blood & Fruit · I Believe

0:22
SPEAKER_00: The banana cost 47 cents.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: I got it from the vending machine at work.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: I grab it on my way out to the parking lot.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: 15 minutes of freedom.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: The break room smells like microwaved fish.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: I just need to be outside for a minute.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: I lean against the wall by the loading dock.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: Trucks roll past on the 15.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: The sun's already down, but the sky is still that burnt orange it gets out here.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: The smog holds onto the light.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: I toss the peel in the trash on my way back in.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't think about where it came from.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Nobody does.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: It's a banana.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: 47 cents.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Later, I can't stop thinking about it.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's blood in the fruit.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: I'm Joel Douglas, and I believe in America.
1:46
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining me.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: Act one, the racket, scene one.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: My name is Elena, 26.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: I work at a fulfillment center in Fontana, one of those massive warehouses off the 15 where the trucks run all night.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: You've ordered from us.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: Even if you don't think you have, everyone has.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm good at my job.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Fast, reliable.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: Management likes me.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: I've been there four years now since I dropped out of Cal State San Bernardino.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: Couldn't afford to stay.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: I live with my parents in San Bernardino, a working class town on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: Railroad, then steel, then military, now shipping.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Hot and dry.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: The mountains trap the smog from LA.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: But on a clear winter morning, when the wind comes down the pass, you can see the snow on Mount San Gargonio.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: My grandfather bought the house in 1971.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: He never talked about where he came from before that.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: None of us asked.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: He worked the rail yards in Barstow, saved everything, bought the house outright.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Three generations later, we're still there.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: We don't love it, but we own it.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: The only security that feels real.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: My parents are citizens.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm a citizen.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: Born at St.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Bernardine's, San Bernardino County, California.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Seven pounds, six ounces.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Birth certificate in the safe.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: But my mother won't answer the door if she doesn't recognize the car in the driveway.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: My father keeps a folder in the fireproof box by the bed.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: Birth certificates.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: Naturalization papers, deed to the house.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: Just in case.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: I asked him once, just in case of what?
3:33
SPEAKER_00: He didn't answer.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: You know what I want.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: I want to stop living like we're here on a past that could get revoked.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: I want my mother to open the door without checking the driveway first.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: I want my father to throw that folder away.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: I want to feel like I belong in my own country.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: Like the word citizen means what it says.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: I want to be able to drive down my street and not worry about being shot during one of the raids.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Three generations.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: My grandfather built a life here.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: My parents built a life here.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: I was born here.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: I am an American.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: And still, there's a folder in the safe.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: Still, my mother won't answer the door.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: I was home when the news broke.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: Saturday, January 3rd, 2026.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Half watching something, scrolling my phone.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: My mother had the TV on in the kitchen.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Background noise.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't really watch.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: She likes the sound of voices.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: The news broadcast cut in urgent.
4:36
SPEAKER_05: U.S.
4:37
SPEAKER_05: Special Operations Forces have successfully captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in a pre-dawn raid in Caracas.
4:46
SPEAKER_05: Maduro, who has been under federal indictment since 2020 on charges of narco-terrorism and drug trafficking, was extracted by helicopter and is currently in U.S.
4:58
SPEAKER_05: custody.
4:59
SPEAKER_05: President Trump addressed the nation from the White House.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: My mother turned it off, didn't say anything, started wiping down the counter.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: She cleans things that are already clean when she worries.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: My father was in his chair.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: I said, Papa, what do you think?
5:18
SPEAKER_00: He didn't look at me, pursed his lips, glanced at my mother.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: He said, I think it's going to be a long year.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: Then he went to get a tool from the garage.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: I could feel something in the room.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: Old.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Something they weren't saying.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: That night I can't sleep.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: I have homework for my history class at Chaffee College.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Latin America, Colonial Period to Modern Day.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: A speech by some old dead guy from the 1930s.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: I hadn't started it.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: I made coffee.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Sat at the kitchen table, opened my laptop, started reading.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Act one, The Racket.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: Scene 2.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: 1935.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: A Marine Corps general named Smedley Butler.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: I keep reading.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Then I was there.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: A folding chair.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Wood seat, cold metal frame.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Room smells like cigarette smoke and wool coats.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: A banner on the wall.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: VFW posts something.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: American flags on either side of the stage.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: The man at the podium is old.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: 60 maybe, but he stands like he's still in uniform.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: Proud.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: Shoulders back, chin up, two metals on his chest I don't recognize.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: He's looking out at the crowd.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: Starts to speak.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: His hands grip the podium.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: His knuckles, white, holding on like he might fall if he lets go.
6:50
SPEAKER_04: War is a racket.
6:51
SPEAKER_04: At the expense of the very many.
6:53
SPEAKER_04: A few people make huge fortunes.
6:55
SPEAKER_04: I spent 33 years and four months in active military service.
7:00
SPEAKER_04: And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business.
7:07
SPEAKER_04: I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914.
7:11
SPEAKER_04: Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank Boys to collect revenues.
7:17
SPEAKER_04: Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1909 to 1912.
7:25
SPEAKER_04: The Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916.
7:35
SPEAKER_04: There are only two things we should fight for.
7:38
SPEAKER_04: One is the defense of our homes, and the other is the Bill of Rights.
7:43
SPEAKER_04: War for any other reason is simply a racket.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: He stops.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Quiet.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: Someone coughs.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: Butler looks at a man in the front row.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: Old.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: Maybe his age.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they served together.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't look away.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Marine Corps General Smedley Butler.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: The most highly decorated Marine in history.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: The only Marine to earn both the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: A gangster, he said, for Wall Street.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say we should never fight.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: He said we shouldn't lie about why we are fighting.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Next morning I go to work.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: Same shift, same trucks, same routine.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: On my break, I go outside.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: Banana in the vending machine.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: I stand there looking at it through the glass.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: Forty-seven cents?
8:34
SPEAKER_00: I don't buy it.
8:39
SPEAKER_06: Act two, the blood and the fruit.
8:42
SPEAKER_06: Scene one.
8:45
SPEAKER_06: Chaffee College.
8:47
SPEAKER_06: Health Sciences Building.
8:50
SPEAKER_06: The room smells like formaldehyde and cold air.
8:53
SPEAKER_06: Fluorescent lights, steel tables.
8:56
SPEAKER_06: A skeleton hanging in the corner like it's waiting for someone to ask it a question.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: My name is Valentina.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: I left Caracas, Venezuela, in 2018, with two suitcases and a pharmacy degree.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: The suitcases are in my closet.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: Degree framed on my wall, neither useful here.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: I work at CVS in Rancho Cucamonga, shift supervisor, not a pharmacist.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: I wear the red polo and the name tag.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: I answer questions about where the cough syrup is.
9:31
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes people ask me for medical advice.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: I give it because I know the answer.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: Then I tell them to talk to the pharmacist.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm not allowed to know the answer.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: Three years I've been trying to get my credentials transferred.
9:44
SPEAKER_01: Forms, fees, evaluations, more forms.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: They want me to retake classes.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: They want transcripts that don't exist anymore because the university can't keep the lights on.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: They want me to prove I am who I say I am, over and over, in a language that isn't mine.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: The bureaucracy isn't a wall.
10:08
SPEAKER_01: It's a maze.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: It lets you keep walking so you don't notice there's no exit.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: So here I am, Chaffey College, 28 years old, anatomy and physiology.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: Sitting in a room full of 19-year-olds, learning the names of bones I learned six years ago in Spanish.
10:29
SPEAKER_06: She's at a lab table, skeleton hand in front of her.
10:33
SPEAKER_06: Index cards.
10:36
SPEAKER_01: Carpels, metacarpals, phalanges.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: I know this.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: I knew this before most of these kids had driver's licenses, but the paper says I don't know it, so I'm learning it again.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: My phone buzzes.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: I should ignore it.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: Lab policy.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: Professors are hard ass about phones.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: But I see the notification.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: WhatsApp?
10:58
SPEAKER_01: Mama.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: I grab my bag and walk out.
11:04
SPEAKER_06: Hallway, cinder block walls, the hum of vending machines.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: I lean against the wall and press play.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: The connection is bad.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: Static.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: Her voice cutting in and out.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: But I can hear it underneath.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: Something I haven't heard in a long time.
11:23
SPEAKER_01: Oh.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: She's talking about the news.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: Maduro.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: The Americans.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: She's saying maybe, maybe, maybe.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: Mihita, Stan Keto va a cambiar, que porfin.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: Baby, they're saying everything is going to change.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: Finally, I play it again.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: Her voice sounds younger.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: That's what hope does, takes years off.
11:49
SPEAKER_01: I remember what she sounded like before.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: Before the lines for bread, before my brother couldn't find work, before the hospitals ran out of everything, and people started dying from things that shouldn't kill anyone.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: She sounds like that again.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: Just for a minute?
12:07
SPEAKER_01: Just in a voice message from eight thousand miles away.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: I want to believe it.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: I remember 2019.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: Guido standing in the plaza, declaring himself president, the crowds, the speeches, the whole world recognizing him, saying this is it.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: This is the turn.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: And then nothing.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: Maduro stayed.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: More sanctions.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: Hospitals got worse.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: People kept leaving.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: People kept dying.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: I left.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: I press record.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: I love you, we'll see.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: I send it before I can say anything else.
12:55
SPEAKER_06: A bed, a desk, a hot plate.
12:58
SPEAKER_06: The pharmacy degree on the wall, next to a calendar from a Venezuelan bakery in Panorama City.
13:03
SPEAKER_06: She's in bed, phone in her hand, the only light in the room.
13:07
SPEAKER_01: I open WhatsApp, the family group chat, Familia Caracas, 17 members.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: I scroll through the icons, people I grew up with, people I left behind.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: My mother, brother, Tia Rosa, Cousin Diego, cousin Maria.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: The photos are old.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: Everyone frozen in time.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: My mother's icon is from 2016.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: She's wearing lipstick, smiling.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: She doesn't look like that anymore.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: I scrolled back through the chat.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: It used to be different.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: Memes, birthday messages, photos of food, my brother posting terrible jokes.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: Diego sharing football highlights.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: Now it's logistics.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: Does anyone have power?
13:54
SPEAKER_01: The water's been out for three days.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: Mama found rice at the Bodega on Avenida Sur.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: Expensive, but it's there.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: Has anyone heard from Abuela?
14:05
SPEAKER_01: She's not answering.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: When the news broke that the Americans grabbed Maduro, the chat exploded.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: Forty-seven messages in an hour.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: I watched them scroll past.
14:18
SPEAKER_01: Diego?
14:19
SPEAKER_01: Siraque Porfin?
14:22
SPEAKER_01: Maria?
14:23
SPEAKER_01: Dios mío, I can't believe it.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: My brother.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: Dorget your hopes up.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: Tia Rosa.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: Praying.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: Just praying.
14:35
SPEAKER_01: I didn't respond.
14:37
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know what to say.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: I still don't.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: Everyone was so happy.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: I know what this is.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm not stupid.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: The Americans aren't doing this because they care about Venezuela.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: They're not doing it for my mother.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: They're doing it because uh there's oil in the ground.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: And someone's getting paid.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: I know there are contracts being signed right now in rooms I'll never see by people who couldn't find Caracas on a map.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: I know.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: But my mother is 63.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: She walked six hours last year to find bread.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: Six hours.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: And if the ships come and the shells fill up and she can get her medication, I don't care why they did it.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: Is that wrong?
15:17
SPEAKER_01: Probably.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: But I'm tired.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: Tired of being right about how broken everything is.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: I just want her to eat.
15:29
SPEAKER_06: Act two, the blood in the fruit.
15:32
SPEAKER_06: Scene two.
15:35
SPEAKER_06: Later that night, Valentina's laptop opened to a PDF.
15:39
SPEAKER_06: Testimony from the Sienega Massacre, translated from Spanish.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm in this history class.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: Need the credits.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: Latin America, H108.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: Colonial period to present.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: Preparing a response paper, two pages, double spaced.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: Due Thursday.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm reading testimony from a survivor, a woman, age 19 in 1928.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: Describing what she saw.
16:11
SPEAKER_06: Chenaga, Columbia, December 6th, 1928.
16:15
SPEAKER_06: The banana zone.
16:16
SPEAKER_06: I can smell it.
16:17
SPEAKER_06: Salt, rot, gunpowder.
16:19
SPEAKER_06: I can feel the heat.
16:20
SPEAKER_06: I can see their faces, people everywhere, thousands of them.
16:24
SPEAKER_06: Workers, families, children sitting on their father's shoulders, women holding babies, old men in white shirts, sweating through the cotton.
16:33
SPEAKER_06: They've been on strike for weeks, 25,000 banana workers.
16:37
SPEAKER_06: They work for United Fruit, except they don't.
16:40
SPEAKER_06: Not officially.
16:41
SPEAKER_06: The company uses subcontractors, so they don't have to call anyone an employee, no contracts, no protections, no rights.
16:48
SPEAKER_06: They get paid in script, company money.
16:51
SPEAKER_06: Only good at the company store, where the prices are whatever the company says they are.
16:56
SPEAKER_06: They're asking for direct contracts, cash wages, toilets at work.
17:01
SPEAKER_06: The company said no.
17:02
SPEAKER_06: The U.S.
17:03
SPEAKER_06: government sent a message to Colombia.
17:05
SPEAKER_06: Protect American property or we send Marines.
17:09
SPEAKER_06: Colombia didn't want American boots on their soil, so they sent their own army instead.
17:14
SPEAKER_06: The soldiers arrive in the plaza, they form a line, rifles ready.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: I see a woman near the front, young, about my age, holding a little girl, maybe three years old.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: The girl is playing with a piece of ribbon, red.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: She keeps winding it around her fingers.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: I want to yell at them to run.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: A general steps forward, Cortes Vargas.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: He reads from a piece of paper.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: His voice carries across the plaza.
17:45
SPEAKER_01: He says, You have five minutes to disperse.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: Nobody moves.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: Where would they go?
17:52
SPEAKER_01: They've been camped here for days.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: This is where they wait during the negotiations.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: Five minutes.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: The soldiers raise their rifles.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: The woman with the little girl looking around now, confused.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: The girl still playing with a ribbon.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: Then the guns, loud, sharp.
18:11
SPEAKER_01: The sound hits your chest before it reaches your ears.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: The screaming and then silence.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: And then screaming again.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: Trains waiting at the edge of town.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: They load the bodies onto the trains.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: Hundreds of them.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: Nobody counts.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: The trains go to the coast, the bodies into the sea.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: The official report will say 47 dead.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: Survivors will say hundreds.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: Some 3,000.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: Nobody knows.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: The company reopened the plantations within a week.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: The strike broken.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: The workers who survived went back to the fields.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: Company script.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: No toilets.
18:59
SPEAKER_01: Nothing changed.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: The government called it restoring order.
19:05
SPEAKER_06: Years later, Gabriel Garcia Marquez will write about this.
19:09
SPEAKER_06: One hundred years of solitude, a chapter, the massacre, thousands dead.
19:14
SPEAKER_06: Then the town forgets.
19:15
SPEAKER_06: Everyone forgets.
19:17
SPEAKER_06: The rain comes and washes the blood away, and the streets look like they always looked.
19:22
SPEAKER_06: And life goes on, and nobody remembers.
19:25
SPEAKER_06: Valentina closes her laptop, opens WhatsApp, plays her mother's message again.
19:42
SPEAKER_06: Act 3, Butler, Marquez, The Question.
19:48
SPEAKER_06: Chaffee College.
19:50
SPEAKER_06: The courtyard, concrete table, January sun, cool air.
19:54
SPEAKER_06: The hum of the freeway.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: Valentina's already there.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Bag of takis and a monster energy.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: I sit down, pull out my Tupperware, rice and beans.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: I tell her she's eating a breakfast of champions.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: You know your mom's food makes my takis taste like depression.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: I push her the Tupperware.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: You want some?
20:15
SPEAKER_00: She made too much.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: It's better than that red dust.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: The red dust has caffeine.
20:20
SPEAKER_01: I need to be awake for my shift.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: Suit yourself.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: Hey, did you read the butler speech?
20:26
SPEAKER_00: For Thursday?
20:27
SPEAKER_01: I skimmed it.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: You skimmed it?
20:29
SPEAKER_00: Val, it's the whole thing.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: I helped make Mexico safe for oil.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: Honduras for the fruit companies.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I saw it.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: And then Cienega, the strike.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: They killed them because they wanted toilets.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: And the US threatened to invade, so the Colombian army did the dirty work.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: History repeats itself, I know.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: And now Maduro.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: They're saying it's for democracy.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: It's not.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: It's the racket.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: The oil, the contracts, it's a setup.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: You should be furious.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: I am furious.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: You don't look furious.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: You look like you're doing homework.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: Because I am doing homework.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: I have an anatomy quiz in ten minutes.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: How can you care about anatomy when they're invading your home?
21:16
SPEAKER_01: Elena, stop.
21:17
SPEAKER_01: If I fail anatomy, I don't get the degree.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: If I don't get the degree, I don't get the raise.
21:22
SPEAKER_01: If I don't get the raise, I can't send money home.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: You think I don't know it's a racket?
21:27
SPEAKER_01: I know exactly what it is.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: I know they're stealing the oil.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: I know they don't care about us.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: But my mother called me yesterday, and for the first time in three years, she wasn't crying about the blackout.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: She was talking about bread.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: You get to write a paper about the racket.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: You get an A.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: You go home to your parents' house.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: I don't have that luxury.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: I don't care if the bread is stolen.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: I just need her to eat.
21:56
SPEAKER_06: The air feels heavy.
21:58
SPEAKER_06: Elena pulls her.
22:00
SPEAKER_06: Tupperware backs lightly.
22:01
SPEAKER_06: Neither woman moves.
22:03
SPEAKER_06: Elena's grandfather never talked about Guatemala.
22:06
SPEAKER_06: She used to think that meant it didn't matter.
22:08
SPEAKER_06: Old news, history.
22:10
SPEAKER_06: Now she thinks he carried it the whole time.
22:12
SPEAKER_06: Like weight you don't name, because naming it doesn't make it lighter.
22:17
SPEAKER_06: Valentina looks at her phone, but doesn't unlock it.
22:20
SPEAKER_06: The message is still there.
22:22
SPEAKER_06: Her mother's voice full of hope.
22:24
SPEAKER_06: Valentina will play it again later, alone, like she's checking that hope is still real.
22:29
SPEAKER_06: They sit at the concrete table.
22:31
SPEAKER_06: The campus noise moves around them.
22:33
SPEAKER_06: The freeway hum doesn't stop.
22:36
SPEAKER_06: Elena slides at the Tupperware a few inches farther away from Valentina.
22:40
SPEAKER_06: Valentina folds the talking back down flat, presses the crease with her thumb.
22:44
SPEAKER_06: Red dust on her fingers.
22:46
SPEAKER_06: Neither of them speaks.
22:48
SPEAKER_06: Then Valentina stands and she says, I have to go.
22:51
SPEAKER_06: Elena nods.
22:52
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
22:53
SPEAKER_06: Valentina walks toward the lab.
22:56
SPEAKER_06: Elena stays seated, watching her go, like she's watching a door close slowly.
23:00
SPEAKER_06: A minute later, Elena gets up and heads for the parking lot.
23:04
SPEAKER_06: She passes the vending machines by the student center without meaning to.
23:08
SPEAKER_06: Bright glass, rows of salt and sugar, a banana.
23:12
SPEAKER_06: 47 cents.
23:13
SPEAKER_06: She stops, stares at it.
23:15
SPEAKER_06: Her hand hovers near the button like it has its own memory.
23:19
SPEAKER_06: She turns and keeps walking.
23:23
SPEAKER_06: At home, her father's folder, still in the safe.