From the recording Orijinal (En Bivo)
First recorded on Gracia (2012)
This was the first song I ever wrote in Ladino, and in many ways, it set the course for everything that followed. I was drawn to the familiar Sephardic figure of the chika morena—the dark-haired young woman who appears throughout our folk repertoire—and imagined her wandering the world after being separated from her homeland, listening to the voices of her ancestors as she searched to understand herself.
As I composed, I realized I wasn't just telling her story. I was trying to understand what it meant to inherit a history that had shaped me long before I was born.
Lyrics
Ladino:
So la chika morena
La de kaveyos largos
La de ojos duros
Ama de korason kontente.
Tengo mas de mil anyos
Ya traversi mares i frontieras
Un dia tornare a mi tierra
Ande la kalor de mi madre me aspera.
Morena me yaman
Blanka yo nasi
De pasear galana
La kolor me pedri
So la chika morena
A los reyes sigi
Suvi eskaleras de oro
Bivi i me kazi kon el mundo
Bezi los piezes de mis ijos
I las manos de mis ermanos
Sto sigiendo la boz de mis padres
Para topar la guerta de mi madre.
English:
I am the dark beauty
The one with long hair
And hard eyes
But with a happy heart.
I have lived more than 1000 years
I have crossed seas and borders
One day I will return to my land
Where the warmth of my mother awaits me.
They call me the dark beauty
But I was born quite fair
Parading about
I have lost my color
I am the dark beauty
Who has abided by many kings
Climbed ladders of gold
Lived and married into the world.
I have kissed the feet of my children
And the hands of my brothers
I am following the voices of my ancestors
To return to the garden of my mother.