Show and Tell: Calle 13-- cancion para un niño en la calle

Calle 13 is a well known Spanish language music group with an experimental approach to music, and has also been acknowledged for creating conversation about issues that plague Latin America. As a focus to one of their many songs aimed at bringing awareness and calling people to action, I will today focus on "cancion para un niño en la calle," or "song for a child on the street." The song focuses on poverty in particular and how poverty affects the youth in Latin America--providing for the listener striking imagery such as "Lluvia sin techo, uña con tierra, soy lo que sobró de la guerra
Un estómago vacío, soy un golpe en la rodilla que se cura con el frío." 
Aside from poverty, however, the group also discusses the cause of such povery: greed by a government that has pushed its citizens to the side and cares only for the labor they provide in order to line their pockets. This is shown in particular with the line, "Soy oxígeno para este continente, soy lo que descuidó el presidente." Labor is constantly sucked from Latin American by other countries as well as by internal interests of people in government, meanwhile the people are left on the streets and children's childhoods are taken away. For all the foreign interest in Latin America, there's no relief: "Porque nadie protege esa vida que crece Y el amor se ha perdido, como un niño en la calle." The poorest citizens are left to fend for themselves, but in doing so also run counter to the larger aim of the state and foreign entities. This song is striking, beautiful and scathing and calls its listeners to do something (though the language and imagery calls more to the local force to rise above).