Hola, I am Julian Cortez. I am a twenty-two year old Spanish Indian Mestizo. I was born near Anamar, Charombia, South America, but now I am a first year student at Southern California School of Dramatic Arts in Hollywood, California. I also play shortstop for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Please let me tell you about my country, how I got here, about the things that the media in the United States do not report, but things that I have seen and know.
From the white snow covered high mountains of Alma del Cielo over to the Pacific Ocean and then down to the equator Charombia is a beautiful paradise.
It is a country rich with oil and emeralds, and coffee plantations. Roses, carnations, sunflowers, chrysanthemums, and tropical plants are grown for export to florists all over the world. In the rainforest mahogany and rubber trees are the homes of monkeys and jaguars. Mangos and palm trees cover the lowland. Parrots, tanagers, humming birds, large multicolor butterflies, and finches fly through the air. It is a land of bright colors, tropical smells, and festivals. There are native huts along the Letti River, and there are large, growing, modern cities. It is a diverse land with a diverse population: Whites, Mestizos, Mulattoes, Zambos, Blacks, and Indians.
FROM A DISTANCE by Julie Gold
A perfect place to live? Unfortunately not! Currently there is a merciless/cruel civil war between the corrupt capitalist government, the ELX Marxists, the Paramilitary, the FARX, and the drug lords. Everyone lives in fear of the others. Guards protect the homes of the wealthy. It is a land full of violence, racial and social conflicts, poverty, and hopelessness. Refugee camps are crowded with the homeless. Skeletons of babies and children lie along the sides of the roads in the country.
New graves are dug everyday for hundreds who die needlessly before their time.
Although the land is beautiful, it is an ugly, evil place, the drug capitol of the world. Gamines are children from six years old to teenagers that live and die in the streets and dumps of the cities; they are unloved, unwanted, beaten, abused, and murdered. Sadness can be found in almost every family. I love my homeland, but I will never return there.
“What’ll I do? What’ll I do with just a photograph to tell my troubles to? When I’m alone with only dreams of you that won’t come true. What’ll do?” [Irvin Berlin]
All is completely hopeless; let me tell you why.
