A mother’s love is one of the strongest passions in the world. This love can drive a mother to do drastic deeds to save her children and her family. The mothers and the grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo truly exemplify the power of a mother’s love. Their love was shown during the Dirty War in Argentina in 1976. During this time, the awful military dictatorship run by Jorge Rafael Videla made people disappear to make others scared of speaking out (Goldman 1). The mothers and grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo were the only people to stand up against the government and protest for the location of their children. These wonderful women showed the world that love can triumph over fear and evil. The mothers and grandmothers of the Plaza de …show more content…
This is because it was an awful time when the people of Argentina were ruled by a military dictatorship that used fear to have complete control of the people. General Jorge Rafael Videla was the mastermind behind this very organized system of fear (Edwards 48). His system was to arrest anyone who went against the government in any way. In most cases though, anyone the junta did not like, disappeared without a trace. For example, some of the people they unfairly targeted and thus soon disappeared were middle class workers, college graduates, students, teachers, social activists, priests, doctors, journalists, trade unionists and leaders (Ismi 28). This basically is the entire population of Argentina. The Argentine government justified this unfair genocide against their citizens by saying that all the disappeared were terrorists (Goldman 5). When the targeted found, they were arrested, their house’s were broken into and robbed. Then they were kidnapped and then taken to death camps where they were tortured. After time at the death camps, the disappeared were strongly sedated and thrown off a plane into a body of water, never to be seen again. (Edwards 48; Benedetti 6). In total, about thirty-thousand people were killed in this horrifying, systematic method. Of all of these imprisoned victims, about five thousand of them were women who were pregnant. Due to the awful conditions of the death camps, researchers tried to find out how many women actually survived giving birth. Because of all the evidence that was lost and destroyed they guessed that only a miniscule amount of about one-hundred and fifty imprisoned women survived childbirth in the death camps. However, after the women gave birth they were killed regardless of the situation. These orphans were then given to other families. This awful process resulted in an unknown amount of newborns in addition to the
Part I: “Consensus in Argentine Society and the Rise of Perón”. Chapter one, “ The Crisis of the Liberal Consensus” begins explaining the low participation of the Argentinean population in the government due to electoral fraudulence and intimidation. Then, he goes on to detailed how the democratic liberalism governmental system was threatened by the elites of Argentina because they fear the possible loss of their power from the new sectors that were rising. After, the author expressed that the
Blackwell was able to conduct with the pioneering Chicana activist and theorist Anna NietoGomez, along with the members of Las Hijas de Cuauhtémoc. She talks about the families of Anna NietoGomez, Corinne Sanchez, and also Sylvia Castillo; and what brought them to activism. She uses Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge to help understand the ways in which the Chicanas have been omitted from the social histories of the Chicano and women’s movements.
It is influential to have strong people who want to fight for their rights. It is often easy to focus on oppression than it is to change it. It takes courage to be able to go against the rules of law. In both “In The Time Of The Butterflies” and “The Censors” , Juan and the Mariposas not only reveal their courage, but also develop significant symbols to the roles of each one of them during their time overcoming oppression. The Mirabal’s behavior towards their determination to fight for freedom, symbolizes the hope for freedom. The Dominicans were blessed to have four courageous women who went against the law in order to better their country for all. In the other hand, Juan role to overcome oppression resulted in his death and death to many innocent people. His behavior symbolize distrust, one cannot trust anyone, not even yourself. He was so caught up with his job, doing what he believed was right, he ended up censoring
They’ve set a shining example of how the will to make a difference can have drastic and incredible results effective or not to the immediate situation at hand, it encourages the surrounding people to question the value of their freedom. After the dictatorship fell, the trial of the murderers was on T.V. for a month, and they admitted to killing the Mirabal sisters and Rufino by strangulation. Although they died however, their sacrifice had not gone unnoticed. The memory of their sacrifice is honored today, by a national holiday and monuments, and through these closure is found, but their story is not lost. “Las Mariposas” leave an important legacy that enforces the ever existing
Martinez, Demetria. 2002. “Solidarity”. Border Women: Writing from la Frontera.. Castillo, Debra A & María Socorro Tabuenca Córdoba. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 168- 188.
...rancisco Solano López and the Ruination of Paraguay: Honor and Egocentrism. New York: Rowan and Littlefield, 2007. Print.
Only 7,000 emaciated survivors of a Nazi extermination process that killed an estimated six million Jews were found at Auschwitz” (Rice, Earle). Most of these deaths occurred towards the end of the war; however, there were still a lot of lives that had been miraculously spared. “According to SS reports, there were more than 700,000 prisoners left in the camps in January 1945. It has been estimated that nearly half of the total number of concentration camp deaths between 1933 and 1945 occurred during the last year of the war” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). The Holocaust was one of the most tragic events in the world’s history.
Historical interpretations relating to small wars in the post Napoleonic period in relation to insurgent guerrilla warfare in urban and agrarian societies across the globe share universal themes. These commonalities will be explored relating why combatants in guerrilla warfare fight. Moreover, what objectives guerrilla leaders wanted to achieve with their theories of social revolution. The works discussed are Mao Tse-tung, On Guerrilla Warfare, Ernesto Che Guevara, Guerilla Warfare, and Carlos Marighella, Minimanual of The Urban Guerrilla. All three of these historical leaders were well-educated men who were social reformers. All concerned with inequalities among their people. All devised ways to wage class warfare within their society and around the world.
Life in Mexico was, before the Revolution, defined by the figure of the patron that held all of power in a certain area. Juan Preciado, who was born in an urban city outside of Comala, “came to Comala because [he] had been told that [his] father, a man named Pedro Paramo lived there” (1). He initially was unaware of the general dislike that his father was subjected to in that area of Mexico. Pedro was regarded as “[l]iving bile” (1) by the people that still inhabited Comala, a classification that Juan did not expect. This reveals that it was not known by those outside of the patron’s dominion of the cruel abuse that they levied upon their people. Pedro Paramo held...
Between the years of 1976 to 1983, the period known as the ‘Dirty War’ was in full force in Argentina. During this period, thousands of people mysteriously went missing, and are referred to now as the ‘Disappeared’. It is believed that many of the disappeared were taken by agents of the Argentine government, and perhaps tortured and killed before their bodies were disposed of in unmarked graves or rural areas. Whenever the female captives were pregnant, their children were stolen away right after giving birth, while they themselves remained detained. It is estimated that 500 young children and infants were given to families with close ties to the military to be raised. Within this essay I would like to touch on the brief history of the Dirty war and why the military felt it was necessary to take and kill thousands of Argentina’s, and also the devastating affects the disappeared, and stolen children are having on living relatives of those taken or killed. It is hard to imagine something like this happening in North America relatively recently. To wakeup and have members of your family missing, with no explanation, or to one day be told your parents are not biologically related is something Argentina’s had to deal with, and are continuing to face even today.
Catholicism glorifies and represents mothers as the main foundation of the family through the example of the passive and unconditional loving Mary, the mother of Jesus Crist. This idea of the mother as unconditional lover beings has been passed on and reproduced in the Chicana/o community. Gil Cuadros and Reyna Grande through their autobiographical work testify against this predominate idea of the mothers being caring and loving persons. Even though most mothers fall into the norm of a normal mother, normality is subjective, therefore Cuadros and Grande’s work represent the complexities of reality. Grande’s The Distance Between Us and Cuadro’s City of God are autobiographical narratives that incorporate reality as a form of testimonial of existence, an act of healing and resilience. Given that these author’s life experiences can be
Each human being must involve themselves in society to receive valuable lesson and experience. However, society is well-known as the most competitive place that is extremely complex and barbarous. In the book The Tattooed Soldier by Hector Tobar, it reveals a distressing history of violence and loss of Guatemala. On March 1982, a dictator named Jose Efrain Rios Montt ruled Guatemala and he conducted a scorch earth campaign against the Revolutionary National Unity of Guatemala. It killed more than 200,000 people and the majority were Mayan and Ladino (Truth Commission: Guatemala). This book exposes the political violence of Guatemala in which Longoria, a member of Guatemala's government, heartlessly murdered Antonio's wife and children. Antonio
Taylor, Rupert. “The Plight of Child Soldiers.” Suite 101. Media Inc., 11 May 2009. Web. 15 Feb. 2011. .
By the fall of 1981, the Argentinean government under the leadership of General Galtieri and the military junta was experiencing a significant decrease of power. Economical...
The emotional letter that Juan left for his mother might be one of the most emotional scenes in the documentary. The pure emotions that the letter was written by Juan to her mother leaves the audience with the bonds and emotions felt between the kids and families. Juan Carlos’s father abandoned the family years ago and left to New York, consequently Juan believe it is his responsibility to provide for his family. He also wants to find his father in New York and confronts him about why he has forgotten about them. The story of Juan is not just about migration of children, but also the issue of family separation. The documentary does not dehumanize but rather bring the humane and sensitive lens to the story of Juan where the human drama that these young immigrants and their families live. Juan Carlos is not the first of Esmeralda’s sons to leave for the United states, his nine-year-old brother Francisco was smuggled into California one month earlier. Francisco now lives with Gloria, his grandmother, who paid a smuggler $3,500 to bring him to Los Angeles, California. Once Juan Carlos is in the shelter for child migrants his mother eagerly awaits him outside. After she sees him she signs a paper that says if Juan Carlos tries to travel again, he will be sent to a foster home.