...y no se lo tragó la tierra / ...And the Earth Did Not Devour Him

“I tell you, God could care less about the poor. Tell me, why must we live here like this? What have we done to deserve this? You're so good and yet you suffer so much,” a young boy tells his mother in Tomás Rivera's classic novel about the migrant worker experience. Outside the chicken coop that is their home, his father wails in pain from the unbearable cramps brought on by sunstroke after working in the hot fields. The young boy can't understand his parents' faith in a god that would imp...