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39

Ever since your sister returned to America, you have been blaming her for our misery. But she must have loved us very much to have come to us in need.

INDIO It's you who keep repeating yourself. She hates us. She came here only because she didn't have anywhere else to go. She told us she'd lose her position with that rich American if she had her baby there. It was only too convenient to tell him she had to visit her family. She probably told him we were pure pink-skinned Englishmen who keep an entire yardful of dirty-skinned Natives to dress them and feed them and do their work.

MOKSA She tried hard to befriend you, Indio. It is you who turned your back.

INDIO Exactly as she befriends her dog in the white man's world. "You aren't men" she told me. You know why? Because only the pink-skinned are Men, and we're brown, dirt-colored. And because Men are the ones who blow the whistle while we Natives are the ones who jump. What if we starve to death, or if mother has to go into a factory to get food for Pretoria's baby! After all, what does it matter! Mother is only an old black woman!

MOKSA If you and I had gotten the food, your mother would not have gone to the factory. And do you not forget your brother -- should he not be fed?

INDIO If there was only Vaisya we could make it! And if Pretoria loves us so much, why doesn't she send some of her American money to support her daughter?