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A vivid, frank account of two women who became leaders in the Salvadoran revolutionary movement
Spanning the early days of the Salvadoran resistance movement through the end of the country’s civil war, Myrna and Marisol blends first-person narratives and conversations between two young social workers, Marisol Galindo and Myrna Lopez. Haunted by the dispossession of their country’s poor by a violent right-wing elite, and unwilling to abide by the patriarchal rules for their lives, Myrna and Marisol found each other and set off to change the world.
Through interviews and conversations, we follow Myrna’s and Marisol’s personal and political paths as they recall how they came to hold leadership positions within the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN), the leftist revolutionary organization that fought against an authoritarian regime in El Salvador for over a decade. Told in their own voices, the book covers the underreported history of the early years and development of the Salvadoran resistance movement as it evolved from small underground cells to mass fronts of civilians to armed organizations fighting a nationwide war.
Through the testimonios of these two women, we witness the meaning of discipline in a revolutionary movement, the role of women—and of sexism—in the work of building a new vision for society, the compromises that women leaders were asked to make, and the ideology and organizing history of a movement that grew massively in spite of brutal repression.
Katie Miles is a labor organizer and writer in San Francisco. She has studied and practiced multiracial, cross-class, transnational organizing for years, and teaches and writes about organizing methodology and skills.
Marisol Galindo, based in San Salvador, is the cofounder of Veteranas de Guerra El Salvador, an association of women guerrilla veterans. She is a social worker who has worked in cooperative and community-based economic development projects since the end of the civil war.
Myrna Lopez is a social worker and sociologist who lives in Spain. She is the author of Renata: Memorias de una guerrillera, an autobiographical novel about the civil war, El más intimo derecho, a novel about women’s history in El Salvador, Casa de las Aguilas, and Cuentos de la guerra.
Introduction
Opens in 1989, with the final major offensive waged by the Salvadoran guerrilla forces and the simultaneous fall of the Berlin Wall, covers basic Salvadoran history, from independence through the 1960s and poses the questions that shape the book: What can an individual ask of a movement? What can a movement ask of an individual?
Prologue
In the aftermath of a military coup in 1979, Marisol goes into labor with her third child while leading the occupation of the University of El Salvador.
Chapter One: Girlhood
Myrna and Marisol recount their childhoods in the 1950s and ’60s, and how they begin to question the society in which they live.
Chapter Two: Building
Takes the reader through Myrna’s and Marisol’s early political development in the early 1970s, illuminating the restrictions they faced as young women and beginning to sketch the formation of a nascent political movement.
Chapter Three: Repression
Presents the stakes of the struggle for the two women, who become more deeply involved as the government’s repression increases in the late 1970s.
Chapter Four: Quemada
The immense risk the women face becomes clear as Myrna deals with the consequences of exposure.
Chapter Five: Clash
The stage is set for a political explosion, after stolen elections prompt an escalating response from the broad opposition movement.
Chapter Six: Victory Next Door
Myrna struggles to comprehend the sacrifices she has already made, and in 1978, she is sent by the RN to join the Sandinista guerrilla army in Nicaragua.
Chapter Seven: Coup
Marisol grapples with questions of reform versus revolution when a coalition of opposition groups (including political parties, military factions, and resistance organizations) stages a successful coup in 1979.
Chapter Eight: Return
Begins with Myrna returning from Nicaragua to El Salvador, in a new relationship and pregnant, and assuming a leadership position within the RN.
Chapter Nine: Breaking Point
Myrna and Marisol reach a point of no return in 1980, when a death squad connected to the Salvadoran military enters a church where Archbishop Oscar Romero is leading mass and assassinates him.
Chapter Ten: Long Haul
Marisol’s resolve deepens as armed struggle widens.
Chapter Eleven: Betrayal
Myrna suffers a deep loss when her partner is killed in combat in the offensive of 1981, and is left questioning the decisions made by the RN.
Chapter Twelve: Back to Basics
Marisol spends time in combat for the first time when the ERP assigns her to its front in Morazán at the end of 1983.
Chapter Thirteen: Exile
Myrna looks for a way to reconcile herself with the movement and the sacrifices she has made in its service.
Chapter Fourteen: Stalemate
At the end of two interlocking eras, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of the end of the war in El Salvador, the FMLN is unable to win what it had hoped would be its “final” offensive, and moves forward with peace negotiations.
Epilogue: Looking Back, Looking Forward
Forty years after they first met, Marisol and Myrna sit together and reflect on the lessons they took from their years in revolutionary struggle.