Salt of the Earth (1954)

Rosaura Revueltas: Esperanza Quintero

Photos 

Quotes 

• Esperanza Quintero : Whose neck shall I stand on to make me feel superior, and what will I have out of it? I don't want anything lower than I am. I am low enough already. I want to rise and to push everything up with me as I go.

• Esperanza Quintero : [opening narration]  How shall I begin my story that has no beginning? My name is Esperanza, Esperanza Quintero. I am a miner's wife. This is our home. The house is not ours. But the flowers... the flowers are ours. This is my village. When I was a child, it was called San Marcos. The Anglos changed the name to Zinc Town. Zinc Town, New Mexico, U.S.A. Our roots go deep in this place, deeper than the pines, deeper than the mine shaft. In these arroyos my great grandfather raised cattle before the Anglos ever came. The land where the mine stands--that was owned by my husband's own grandfather. Now it belongs to the company. Eighteen years my husband has given to that mine. Living half his life with dynamite and darkness. Who can say where it began, my story? I do not know. But this day I remember as the beginning of an end. It was my Saint's Day. I was 35 years old. A day of celebration. And I was seven months gone with my third child. And on that day--I remember I had a wish... a thought so sinful...... a thought so evil that I prayed God to forgive me for it. I wished... I wished that my child would never be born. No. Not into this world.

• Esperanza Quintero : Ramon, I don't like to bother you, but the store, they say, uh, we will not make another payment on the radio this month, they'll come and take it away... We're only one payment behind... I argued with her. It isn't right.

  Ramon Quintero : It isn't right, she says. Was it right that we bought this... this instrument? But you *had* to have it, didn't you. It was *nice* to listen to.

  Esperanza Quintero : I listen to it... every night... when you are out at the beer parlor.

  Ramon Quintero : 'No money down'. 'Easy term payments'. I tell you something: This installment plan--it's a curse on the working man!

  [storms out] 

• Teresa Vidal : So they had a taste of what it's like to be a woman. They run away.

  Esperanza Quintero : With Ramon it's pride. I spoke out of the bitterness in me, and he was hurt.

  Teresa Vidal : Anything worth learning is a hurt. These changes come with pain for other husbands too, not just Ramon.