Campesino means
simple farmer in
Spanish. While
English has possible equivalent,
peasant, this word has negative connotations that the Spanish word doesn't have. This is because in the
Latin world, many people, referred to as campesinos, still survive from subsistence farming, whereas subsistence farming died out in the
anglophone world at least a century ago. Hence, it is customary in English to refer to subsistent farmers in
Central or
South America as campesinos.