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The Liverpool Star Who Came Out of Nowhere

LIVERPOOL, England — Luis Díaz bares his forearm and places a finger on his wrist, as if taking his own pulse. He does it without breaking eye contact, without pausing for breath. He does not seem to notice he is doing it. It is a reflexive, unconscious motion, the best way to demonstrate what he means.

Díaz does not, he says, speak Wayúu, the language of the Indigenous community in Colombia to which he can trace his roots. Nor does he wear traditional clothing, or maintain every custom. Life has carried him far from La Guajira, a spit of land fringed by the Caribbean Sea on one side and Venezuela on the other, the Wayúu homeland.