Social Injustices

Colibrí By Ann Cameron

Recently I finished the book Colibrí by Ann Cameron. In the book, the main character Rosa lives in poverty with her "uncle". At the age of four, Rosa was kidnapped from her parents, and then she was found by a man named Baltasar (who Rosa calls Uncle). When she lived with her parents they taught her to be honest and humble. Against Rosa's wishes, and her family’s values, Uncle begs for money while pretending to be blind in order to earn more and guilt people into giving them more money. Along with that Uncle lies to Rosa, and takes advantage of her, on two separate occasions to help pay for the debts he has gotten himself into from drinking and making bad decisions. I think it is unjust for adults to take advantage of children because they are younger or less knowledgeable.

In the story Uncle uses Rosa to help him pickpocket foreigner’s passports, and sell them for a profit. He tells her that it’s just a fun game, and it will barely even affect the foreigner. He takes advantage of her skills by using her nimble fingers and age to help him make money. Luckily, Rosa stays loyal to her parent’s lessons and refuses to help Uncle. In a different situation Uncle and his long-time friend/partner, Raimundo, have a plan to steal a valuable statue from a church and sell it for a large amount of money. Once again they lie to Rosa, telling her that the statue has termites and they were taking it so that they could fix it. Uncle practically raised Rosa, so she trusts him, and using this, he strategically convinces Rosa that he is right. And again she figures out that they’re lying to her and she stops them from committing the crime. Although both the characters Uncle and Raimundo were stealing because of economic issues in their lives, they shouldn’t have lied to Rosa and tried to trick her into helping them.

In the world, many adults take advantage of children. Whether it’s not giving them the correct amount of change, or recruiting children to the army. Although the character Rosa did the right thing by standing up to Uncle and Raimundo, many children throughout the world don’t have the option to. Kids who live in many third world countries or poor conditions and don’t have money or an education so they are often targeted and forced into combat. I think adults should rise above their own needs and think of the children that are being affected. It is unjust for adults to take advantage of children because they are smaller, weaker, less intelligent, or less informed about the world around them. Instead adults should send them good, valuable lessons like Rosa’s parents taught her. Adults should lead by example and set a good model for kids.