Mariló La Cubana

In the middle of the night
On a steamboat
On the way to Havana
Mariló was
Full of cold
Nothing to eat
The little she had
She gave to Xavier
Eat my little one
Today that we have
Tomorrow is another day
We will have or not

They arrived at the port
With nothing in their pockets
Nothing to gain
So much to lose
Mrs. María
Her husband, well
I am a single mother
I come from other lands
My only man
Is my son Xavier

She left there
Her nails in the ground
The roots in the hoe
And life in her
She was a woman
She was a single woman
She was an emigrant

Working hard
Weeks on end
Xavier was already eating
Three times a day
He could go to school
She was happy
When at night
She wrote to him
His little letters
To send to his parents
From that other land

With hard savings
She bought a house
She gave her son education
And still had left
To send to the land
That one day she left

Here they called her
María the Cuban
There they called her
Lola the Galician
She was a woman
She was a single woman
She was an emigrant

The years went by
And some new people
A new language
A new life
She spent the afternoons
With her granddaughter
Grandma Lolita
Where are you from
I am from a land
Where the wind speaks
Where the waves dance
And the birds sing

Dear granddaughter
Go to that land
Tell them that the Cuban
Stayed in Cuba
She was a woman
She was a woman, single
She was an emigrant

Who slept in Cuba