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While some girls were taken back to their villages periodically to visit their families, Virginia’s captors added psychological abuse and told Virginia that her mother no longer wanted her; if taken back her mother would sell her to someone else who treated her even worse. Later it becomes clear that Virginia’s family did not know where she had gone or why she stayed away.
Virginia was promised school, but it never happened. Instead, she was locked in the house while her white captors were gone for the day and she was rarely allowed outside. However, her master gave her the key to learning how to read and Maria devoured the household books and later the schoolbooks her master’s children had.
As she grew into a beautiful teenager her master’s kindness and interest in took a sexual turn and Maria’s position became intolerable. She was able to contact her family with the help of a neighbor and escape.
Although she first returned to her family and indigena village, it became clear that she no longer belonged there in the deep poverty, lack of schools, and unending field labor.
Virginia reached for the stars, supporting herself as a maid while applying to mestizo schools and entering a nation wide pageant. She dreamed of a future where “dirty Indians” could take their places with futures beyond the poor villages or domestic servants.
This was interesting and well-written. Virginia’s story began in the 1980’s. It is no longer legal in Ecuador for children to be taken from their indigina families. Yet children of these villages still do not have the opportunities for school and careers that the mestizos do. Very different and yet the same in many ways as Native Americans were and are treated here in the U.S. – looked down upon as being a less intelligent and a lesser people by the descendants of those who conquered the area.… (more)