Going Home

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  When leaving Buenos Aires and returning to Atlanta I felt very tired, not from lack of sleep but from information overload.  I learned a lot.  And, a lot of this was very depressing.  It will be good to get a good night’s sleep in my own bed.  Maybe tomorrow I will be better able to process the whole trip. 

The Argentines believe that since these bad things happened, they cannot just look the other way.  They need to acknowledge the wrong doing and keep it fresh in the memory so that it never happens again.  We also need to recognize that these bad things that happen elsewhere can happen here if we don’t acknowledge it and keep them fresh in our memory.  

 

“Hay que aprovechar”

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I feel compelled to express my heartfelt appreciation and gratitude to my host parents in Argentina, whom I feel blessed to have been able to visit. They are more than just a host family; they have become an integral part of my life, guiding, supporting, and shaping my experience in Buenos Aires and back home in the U.S.

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My host family and me in May 2018

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My host family and me in May 2023

My host mother Zulema always told me– both when I lived with her five years ago and when I saw her today– “hay que aprovechar.” This roughly translates to “you have to take advantage.” She mostly says this to me it in reference to traveling, visiting different countries, expressing your love, and living boldly. But I think this phrase applies aptly to one of the themes of our study abroad trip. What can we as students do to prevent violence, dictatorship, and trauma in our own country? What lessons can we take from what happened in Argentina and apply to our own country? 

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Symbol of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo

We can, and should, take advantage of what we have learned here in Argentina. We have all grown profoundly during this trip as students, listeners, observers, multilinguals, and human beings. As we are our own people, each of us will “aprovechar” in our own way– some may go into human rights work, others may go into law, others will integrate this growth into their lens as psychologists. For myself, this trip has changed the way I view the experience of trauma. I know this new perspective will undoubtedly influence my future clinical work. I look forward to seeing how each of us integrates these lessons into our work and our lives.

Parque de la Memoria

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Our visit to Parque de la Memoria was a beautiful conclusion to our study of human rights in Argentina. As Fernando told us upon arrival, the park represents the duality of memory such that just as we must look back, so too must we look forward. The names of thousands of disappeared etched on walls in the park stand in contrast to families and students having picnics and taking a walk. 

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statue at parque de la memoria

Located on the beautiful coastline of Rio de la Plata, we were able to look out to the water where many were disappeared and murdered via “transfers” – a euphemism for being drugged and thrown out of an airplane into the water. Such method of murder leaves no trace. The names of the disappeared are listed on long, sprawling walls in the park, with many slates blank and yet to be filled in. Large, unique sculptures are scattered throughout the park.

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statue of a child in rio de la plata looking out to sea in memory of those who were disappeared

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Throwing flowers into the water to commemorate and honor the disappeared

In remembrance of those who were disappeared, and in quiet reflection of our viaje, we placed the flowers that Fernando brought into Rio de la Plata. It was quiet, somber, and sobering.  

For me, trying to imagine grieving a disappeared loved one feels like a profound and enduring hunger. There is a need to be satiated that will never be met. Small actions like offering flowers or visiting names perhaps chip away at the famine, but never satisfy it. I feel privileged to have experienced this trip and motivated to amplify the voices of the disappeared and their families. Every story is worth telling and every loss worth grieving. Each story gives way to similar loss, grieving, and erasure that has happened and will continue to happen in our home country. However small my individual impact may be, hearing these testimonies and stories has animated me to do my part in preventing future cyclical violence in the U.S.  

Argentina – Rose, Bud, and Thorn

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Emily’s rose/bud/thorn suggestion at dinner last night inspired me to write a sweeping reflection on the past 18 days. To say this was a profound experience would be an understatement, and I’m truly so grateful to have been a part of it. 

Rose: Friends and Fun 

 

Argentina was a culture shock for most of us. Between the dreadfully long food service in Córdoba and the “hard water”, adjusting took some time. Initially, communication was completely humiliating. In retrospect, I appreciate that and am grateful that I was not alone. We bonded over our novelty in this country, and I think it helped bring the group together.

Javon featured trying Mate for the first time. I only captured the initial reaction, but he came around to it and actually enjoyed it (after some sugar)…

Laura was an angel, and one of the best days was her cookout for us. The hospitality of her and her family to mostly strangers was incredible. 

 

Thorn: Not really a thorn, but certainly upsetting 

On Saturday we visited Parque de la Memoria and tossed flowers into the ocean to honor those who were disposed of in the ocean. There is a special type of pain in knowing these people lost their lives in the middle of nowhere, and are out there somewhere.

Every single visit to detention/killing centers was tough. Each time we learned more and more, I had a harder time digesting the information. Unfortunately, these visits were critical to our understanding of the dictatorship, and I wouldn’t have the same understanding of Argentina’s history if I had just taken a class in the U.S. The trauma the survivors endured and still deal with today is unimaginable. As Sources of Expression of Resilience in Trauma Survivors notes, a cross-cultural approach to trauma research is paramount to understanding and treating victims like those who were imprisoned in Argentina. 

Bud: Lessons 

Despite how emotionally exhausting it was to study the dictatorship, it was critical to our understanding of specific social issues and phenomena. As Americans, our knowledge is limited when it comes to social issues outside of our country. I feel like this is probably tactical. But when people like us- college students with the capacity to make real change- can take information back to the U.S, we can educate others and move towards a better world. 

Reflecting on ESMA

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In the basement of the building, MarySue stands in front of a memorial to those who we know were “transferred” to the air force base to be dropped in the ocean. Only one photo depicts a survivor, who was the photographer and was able to sneak the film out.

Our second-to-last stop of this trip was ESMA (Navy School of Mechanics), a detention center off of another bustling road in Buenos Aires. At first look, the grounds are beautiful. The site looks like a small college campus, and it’s hard to imagine the horrors that occurred here. When you get to the actual building in the corner of the grounds, the air shifts as you recognize the familiar rows upon rows of photos of disappeared people. The building is extremely hollow and cold.

We made our way to the basement. Prisoners were taken here, tortured, and interrogated. One of the more disturbing things we learned there was the language officers used as codes. To be “transferred” meant you were being sent off to your death. They dubbed the hallway of the basement “Happiness Avenue” as a cruel psychological tactic. 

This is a depiction of what prisoners could see from their position in Capuche.

While the basement was grim, the Capuche (“hood”) was worse. This is where prisoners were held daily. They were kept in small quarters with hoods on their heads and their limbs bound. There were video testimonies from survivors who noted the sheer inhumanity of such a condition, one that was not human. It was complete isolation and psychological torture. 

At the beginning of the trip, we learned about the prisoners being dropped from planes to drown. ESMA was where they were sent from. Being there and then traveling to the coast, where we saw memorials and tributes to those lost in the sea, it was hard to imagine how one human could do this to another. That was perhaps the hardest concept for me to grasp on this trip. What does it take for you to believe that forcing physical and mental torment on another person was appropriate? Why were so many people complicit? I think the answer lies in instability. Mass Killings in Argentina (Staub) claims “When life conditions are complex and difficult, submitting to an authority that offers a vision can satisfy important needs and goals. The military, although unable to stabilize the country economically or politically, had become the big brother in Argentina. Much of the population and political leadership relied on it, and the rest accepted its dominance.” 

You can draw troubling connections to the political state of Argentina’s pre-dictatorship to the United States. Our country is more polarized than ever, and it’s possible that a power similar can offer a sense of stability to those who long for it – and who knows what their agenda will be.  

Esma

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The detention center that we visited  today was called ESMA, and this was bigger than the rest at about 17 blocks. The officers used many people for things like slave labor, or doing other jobs to stay alive longer. The torture would vary throughout the process, with things like electric, music, and drugging many before throwing them from airplanes. It was hard to officially hear that the 3 branches of military was responsible for this suppression. The fact that many of the 200 survivors are still going through trial to get some sort of justice. Which just goes to show how recent things were and this is a mindset that might still be around in different forms.

Chi klmat, written in Moroccan Darija

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A park full of green tipa trees with the sun shining through, making them look like sprawling brown paths cutting through their own lanes of 2D forests.

Ghadi nkteb hadchi bdarji 7it khasni nmars bha chwiya ila bghit nrj3 l ifriqiya chi nhar. Sra7tan ana modgdg bzaf b3d ma salit m3 had l programme lakn fr7an — 7it t3ltm bzaf hena. Had lbled mokhtalif tmaman 3la lmaghrib w mrikanz, lakn bayen bzaf f nfs lwoqt. Mashakl dyal nass, rishwa, wasta, kolchi kayna — 7ta shekl d l3rouba hena b7al lli kayn f chmal lmaghrib. Kan bghit ndir chi 7aja bdarija 100% wlakn makanch lwoqt. Kolyom kont lmtrjm dyal programme hhhh. Iwa hadchi lli 3ta Allah. Mazal kanfkr f sa7bi, J LR, fach kanqra f chi bled akhr. Allah yer7mo. Alhamdollilah 3la kol l7al.

To the next who looks for answers

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Hola lamngen. Espero que estes bien, contente y feliz.

This is not an easy place to be. The worst of the US has happened, is still happening, or is starting to happen here for the most part. These lands are scarred by hatred and treachery, and have been covered in beautiful churches, palaces, and offices to distract you from that truth. The original inhabitants of these lands are very much still with us — Kamiare, Mapuche, Wichi, Chane, countless more — despite what your tour guides would have you believe.

These cities, Cordoba and Buenos Aires, have histories which extend incomprehensibly beyond when the Iberians invaded in the 1500s. The “conquerors” were not the first to make cities, and weren’t infallible heroes who were masters of their “craft”. In fact, the first one got what was coming to him pretty quickly and they had to get his boy from Spain to finish the job when they made the capital.

Despite what people tell you, it’s not acceptable to call Indigenous people “Indians” or Afrodescendent people “Blacks” — and whatever story they tell you to justify it is also unacceptable. These streets, buildings, waterways, all of this infrastructure and beauty that has become the pride of this nation would not have been possible without enslaving Africans and Indigenous people. These houses of worship, lined with gold and silver and ornate wood carvings, could only be built using enslaved labor and stolen materials.

You will walk into these memory sites and feel the heaviness that chokes the air and you with it. I ask you to do the same as you walk through the old city, through the cathedrals, the estancias, the ranches, and the palaces. Recall their histories just as you would for a recent site, because they still inflict the same traumas as they did 500 years ago. The only difference is that they’d never wrap a sitio de memoria in goldleaf.

No matter how good your intentions are or how well you speak English and Spanish, being a cultural mediator will become tiring. You will find yourself apologizing for the actions of others, perhaps because their intentions were lost in translation (or, really weren’t). You will become so tired that by the time you just need to speak for yourself to buy water, you won’t even be able to form the basic sentence. Often, those who ask for the most of you will give you the least thanks in return. These are pretty universal things, but they’re good to keep in mind specifically here.

This is a nation of beautiful people, cultures, and vistas that will take your breath away even on a tough day. You will likely have some of the most meaningful moments of your life here; little minutes that feel like hours, expressing something that an entire library would struggle to do — without words. I am enamored with just how much I have to learn and know about this place, and I’m so excited to come back under different circumstances.

If you come here looking for answers to questions like the ones I had, then I am certain you will find them. The journey is anything but easy, but I leave this country with a kind of heavy enlightenment about myself and our own country. Be kind to yourself, set healthy boundaries, rest, and don’t be afraid to try new things. Do be afraid of the street chori, though.

Also, bring hot sauce and your own spices. One bottle is not enough. And be familiar with the general plotline of Forrest Gump, at least toward the end of the movie. It becomes relevant here, you’ll see (mille grazie, profe).

Suerte,

D.

Estados culiados

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A cast iron statue of a general or some other on a horse, with trees adorning the sides. There is a clear blue sky in the background.

“Fucked-up states”

Dr. Mary R. Harvey notes the following in Sources and Expression of Resilience in Trauma Survivors:

“Violence, abuse, tragedy, and catastrophe know no national boundaries. Indeed, they make themselves at home in nations, cultures, homes, and communities throughout the globe.”

Seems like one of those “no shit” kinda things at first, but really take a second to think about how terms like “genocide” and “ethnic violence” carry connotation in your head. What places and people come to mind? It’s going to be different for everyone; you might think Rwanda, I think Palestine, Bill thinks Sudan, etc.

Point is, you and I will be hard pressed to find estadounidenses whose first association with these terms is with the United States and other North American states. Between 400 years of slavery, genocide, invasion, developing the framework of concentration camps, and inhumane imprisonment, the US really should be everyone’s first, at least second answer.

Despite this, we’ve been enculturated through US media (manipulated by the state/oligarchy) to perceive our conditions as anything other than indicative of genocide. We came here to Argentina learning about how the repressors used euphemisms for things like torture and execution, but what about ours?

Here are some truly US euphemisms, with some translations I’ve provided. I think I get to say at this point I’m pretty alright at translating, cause I’ve been doing it the entire time:

  • “Trail of Tears” – a death march against Indigenous Americans already weakened from invasion, plague, and treachery, which forced them and their descendents to live on reservations,
  • “Reservation” – an open-air prison,
  • “Forfeiture of one’s 13th Amendment rights” – forcibly enslaving someone,
  • “Punishable by fine” – you can get away with it if you’re rich and white,
  • “Died after police believed they saw a firearm” – murdered by an occupying military force with absolute impunity.

The list can go as long as we want it to, because this is a state and cultural entity obsessed with whitewashing. Why do you think we don’t have nationally-effective unions? Can we name a single unified student political front — and for the love of the Good Lord, don’t say the Young Democrats — that is able to effect change? Why is the US so different from Argentina, and why are the people who grow up buying into the US so different from those who don’t?

THE UNITED STATES IS A PRISON. It is a machine designed to create generation after generation of apathetic and complacent citizens, accepting the divine authority of the state before anything else. Sick? It’s your fault, pay for it. Arrested? Your fault, should have known better. House seized by the state with no compensation? Your fault again, should have paid for a better lawyer.

THE UNITED STATES IS A MONSTER. It feeds off of your blood, sweat, and tears and demands more until you’re dead and can’t say no anymore. It draws diasporas with hopes of an “American Dream” which will never come: it’s the bulb in front of the anglerfish — the only one who gets to benefit from the trick is the one doing the trick. You’ll spend your whole life’s savings trying to stay afloat here. Meanwhile your money is just going to line the pockets of some rich fuck in Hell’s Kitchen, who’s gonna spend your rent on blow and sashimi tonight.

One of my classmates on this program asked “if [I] hate America so much, if it’s so bad, then why do [I] even live there?”. We could unpack that a lot, but after these weeks here I’m gonna start charging for emotional labor by the minute — for now, let’s just keep it at that. We all know what that sentence leads to, and I thought it was pretty funny considering we’re abroad and not too far from “my country:.

To respond: something I stole from some anti-Charlie Kirk meme I saw a while ago.

“You hate feudalism? Yet you toil the lord’s land. Curious.”

To sum up this post, these countries are all damned from the start. We, as estadounidenses, just find ourselves on a different, more progressed branch of imperialism/capitalism. Is there hope? I hope so! Did I learn here? Of course! Was it worth it to come here? Absolutely. Was it easy? Fuck no. Does the constant cycle of micro/MACROaggressions, interpreting, undercooked meat, and big walks take a toll on your health? Yes, next time I’ll bring more vitamin C and DayQuil.

ALHAMDULLILAH IN ANY CASE

Memory, not Erasure

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I was surprised to find that ESMA was so close to residential buildings and businesses in the city. I had expected it to be more out of the way, like La Perla. Several of these buildings were there at the time of the dictatorship, so the residents may have even been aware of ESMA being used as a detention center. So many more of these sites were in places where people lived or traveled past than I expected. It was also interesting to learn that under Menem’s presidency, ESMA was supposed to be torn down and developed, becoming just another part of the surrounding neighborhood, all evidence of atrocities committed simply erased. I’m glad activists were able to fight to prevent that and instead to turn it into a memory site, and that their voices were heard. I feel like the site would have likely been built over if it was in the U.S., sadly, as there is a tendency to gloss over any negative history. It is also a contrast to Club Atlético. While also a memory site, it had a highway built over it, in an attempt by the dictatorship to erase the history, whether intentional or not, and seems to not be getting many resources to uncover more of the buried space.