Justicia y Memoria

My second mass email:

Two Sundays ago, I accompanied my host family to a ceremony to commemorate my host mother's ex-husband, Julio Cesar, killed in 1974 (this was two years before the military took hold, Perón was still president). My host mother, Ana María says, "Fue primero" as in he was the first disappeared. His body was found two days after her was kidnapped and soon afterwards the matter was all over the news. Nothing like this had happened before: the Triple A hadn't appeared yet, there were acts of terrorism by anonymous groups loosely tied to the government, bombs and so forth, but disappearances weren't rampant.

Julio was the father of my "host siblings", Leo and Mariela, who were 4 and 3 at the time. Julio Cesar was a photojournalist who had been at a socialist event, taking a photograph that led to his arrest. Nothing until now has ever been done to investigate or even commemorate what happened to him. There is a group of people who call themselves Los Vecinos de Balvenera and Almagro, two districts (I live in Almagro) in which it is estimated was the home of 200-300 desaparecidos. Julio Cesar grew up a few blocks from out apartment.

My host mother told me about this a couple weeks ago because she wanted to invite me a ceremony in which they were going to install a plaque in his memory. Not to gloat, but my my host mother told me that she had never told any of her previous exchange students about this, but she felt like she could because she sees the way I speak about things and that I have a "mente amplia."

So on Sunday, Leo and his girlfriend came over for lunch and then around 4 o' clock my host parents, Ana María and Eduardo (her second husband, adopted father to her children) and Leo and Claudia and I walked to Julio Cesar's house. There, people gathered in front on the sidewalk where a plot to place the plaque to mark his memory. People spoke about Julio Cesar, who he was, what he enjoyed: Neruda, Lorca, Mercedes Sosa. We all wore small photocopied pictures of him that were stapled to little red paper cranes. People spoke about how this does not mark an end or a goal, but stressed that we must continue to remember and make statements that recognize the disappeared so that this never happens again. ¡Nunca más! Afterwards, the family and others came back to the apartment and chatted and laughed and spoke softly of this lovely, simple, poignant ceremony.

A few nights prior to this event, I told my host parents about my father's parents who were communists and investigated by the FBI. As I told them this, about how my grandfather was essentially forced to stay in Phoenix, AZ where he felt protected, but dissatisfied nonetheless, a glimmer of recognition passed across Ana María and Eduardo's faces. The morning of the ceremony when Leo came over, Ana and Eduardo bragged to him, "su abuelo era comunista!" and then they told me, "Leo es comunista, también," and they all smiled at me in approval. And after the ceremony for Julio Cesar, I stood alone observing everything and Ana walked up to me and said, "Era, comunista, ¿sabés?" pointing to the plaque for Julio Cesar.

I never knew that I could ever feel as accepted as I did on that day, welcomed into a different culture, a people, and a family. They recognized me and let me in, into Argentina.