Proverb – El Salvadorean

Nationality: El Salvadorean
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 27, 2008
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Ojos que no ven, corazon que no siente.

Eyes that don’t see, heart that does not feel.

What you don’t know won’t hurt you.

Cesar learned this proverb in El Salvador. He thinks that this means that sometimes it is better not to tell the full truth to someone. Some things are better kept to oneself in order not to hurt other people. Also, if she is not going to find out, go out and party. Sometimes girls or guys can get too attached to their boyfriends and girlfriends that they don’t give each other space. That might be acceptable when you are married but not when you are young and still experimenting.

I find that to be true. In a relationship, especially with younger people, trust is always an issue. If one person in the relations ship goes out somewhere without the other, they are going to assume that they are doing something bad and/or be cheating on them. In reality, it may be a case of one person just trying to get a little bit of space.

I find that the proverb applies to me because I don’t tell my girlfriend a lot of things because she is the jealous type. I mean I’m not out cheating on her but according to her, I cannot talk to or hang out with other girls that she doesn’t know. It gets pretty ridiculous when trust is an issue in a relationship.

Not only does this proverb apply to relationships that are boyfriend/girlfriend, it applies to others such as parent/child. There are very many occasions in Latino families where the parents do not want to let their child go out or do other things of that nature. Therefore the kids sneak out and do stuff that they don’t want their parents to know such as underage drinking, smoking, sex, etc. Although there are laws or rules set up against those things, defiance becomes a factor. The fact that they are not supposed to do such things entices them to go forward and do them. When those things are done in a controlled environment where the chance of something going wrong is minimized, they feel that it is okay to do such things even though their parents will kill them if they were to find out.