Elvia Alvarado Character Analysis

In Elvia Alvarado’s memoir Don’t Be Afraid, Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart, she expresses the struggles that people such as herself, and numerous other Honduran citizens face every day. Elvia Alvarado was a Honduran woman, who was considered a peasant. She was born into a poor family in the countryside of Honduras. The book retails stories from Alvarado’s life and the obstacles she is forced to overcome in hopes of achieving a better life for herself and the people around her. She faces oppression due to her social class, ideals, and especially her gender. At the same time though, she is able to find support through these communities. While the odds are stacked against Elvia Alvarado, she is able to continuously preserve,

giving her the opportunity to achieve the equality she sets out for.
Our story begins when Alvarado is just a young girl, dealing with the conflict between her parents, in which she eventually ends up living without either of them by the time she is 13. Only a couple years later, Alvarado had her first kid when she was 15. A similar story for many Honduran women, Alvarado found herself preparing to raise a child without the help of the father. It is said to be very common for men to impregnate a woman and then claim it is not their child. In their culture, it is not perceived as immoral if a man were to leave a mother and their children, as it is the mother’s fault for letting the man touch her. When the man of the house did stick around, it was not uncommon for his earnings to go towards himself, including liquor, while the woman’s earning goes entirely towards the kids.
The United States of America also plays a political role in the ideology of women. The US is set up in Honduras to combat communism in Nicaragua at this time, which causes the Honduran people to gain anti-communist viewpoints. In Alvarado’s journey toward equality, many Honduran people view it not as equality, but as communism. This idea of gender deters her from equality even more. The role that gender plays in hindering Alvarado’s strides towards equality is shown through the norms the Honduran culture has for a woman. While gender does serve as a driving force of oppression for Alvarado, it also gives her a chance to fight for equality. Through the church, Alvarado is able to be apart of Women’s Groups, which gives her the opportunity to be surrounded by women who deal with similar issues. These groups help serve as driving force towards her goal of equality. The church does, however, eventually cut her organization off when they fear the Women’s group was gaining too much power. Simultaneously the church serves a role in the community to reinforce oppression, in essentially saying “God put you into these poor situations, so you deserve to stay there”. In this, the Church thus serves as a means of good and bad for Alvarado.
Another driving force that causes Alvarado inequality is politics and how her social class relates to it.

Alvarado was born into a poor social class where her father did not own any land. Land is a major issue for Honduran people because only a few wealthy people owned all the land, and everyone else was forced to work for these large landowners. The inequality stretches further because majority of these landowner do not have legal right to the land, which is where Alvarado’s participation in groups that fight for the return of their land begins. Social class plays another big role is oppression with the lack of healthcare and education. The lack of healthcare significantly affects the campesinos in that there is a lack of nearby hospitals. If a person is to become in need of a doctor, it is common for the person to die before they can even complete the journey to town. However, even if they were to make it in town by early morning, sometimes the hospital is booked for the entire day. Along with healthcare, the government also poorly aids education. As expressed by Alvarado, “even though elementary school is free, we still have to pay for uniforms, books, and materials… we have to pay for the bus fare too… Many of the high schools charge a monthly fee. In my town they charge $7.50 a month (59)…” Due to the high price of school, it is uncommon for children to make it past the sixth grade. This lack of support for children to go to school hinders their only chance

to have, what the adults consider some sort of inheritance, due to the fact that they have no money to pass on. These two major economic factors are two facets that hinder Alvarado’s chance for liberation.
Despite all these forces that are standing in the way of Elvia Alvarado achieving equality and a better life, there are many forces that help give Alvarado hope.

It is the small victories along the way that keep pushing Alvarado to not giving up on her dreams. The first is her children and her aspirations to give them a better life. The idea that if she works hard and stands up for what is right, then her children and future generations will prosper from it. Despite it ultimately cutting her off, the church is also a driving force. Once Alvarado got involved with the church, it gave her the ability to surround herself with other motivated individuals. She used the community she gained from the church to continue fighting for what she believed was right. Finally the support she received from lawyers and doctors gave her hope that it was not just the campesinos that were striving for a more equal life, but it was also people from other social classes. In some of Alvarado’s closing words, “I used to think you has to be poor to be part of this struggle. But there are people in Honduras who aren’t poor, yet they’re on out side. They’re well-educated people – doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers – who identify with the poor (145).” Elvia Alvarado continues to strive for equality for the campesinos because she keeps hope that there are people on her side. There are people in Honduras, there are people in Europe, and there are even people in America, who she believes

have the will power to help make a change. These people are the ones who help Alvarado become liberated.
Elvia Alvarado struggles with the oppression of forces that she was born with, and though these different negative factors weigh down on her everyday, she is able to continue to stay positive and fight for what she believes is right. With the issues of gender, socioeconomic class, and public perception, Alvarado deals with multiple groups and multiple people trying to tear her down. With the support of the loved one’s around her and the idea that a better life can be achieved, she is able to overcome these obstacles. As she explains in her book, sometimes she does get knocked down, and she must rely on the other campesinos around her to bring her back up, just as she does for them. With the support she does have, and with a will unmatched by so many others, Alvarado has the ability to achieve true equality for her, and the Honduran generations to come.