Overview

A collection of testimonies from midwives in El Salvador who delivered babies during the twelve-year-long civil war and today fight to protect their ancestral role to care for the reproductive health of their communities. Una colecci n de testimonios de parteras de El Salvador que atendieron partos durante doce anos de guerra civil, y que hoy luchan para proteger su rol ancestral. This bilingual edition includes thirty color photographs and five black-and-white illustrations. A collection of testimonies from midwives in El Salvador who delivered babies during the twelve-year-long civil war and today fight to protect their ancestral role to care for the reproductive health of their communities. This bilingual edition includes thirty color photographs and five black-and-white illustrations. ""An inspiring testament to the indispensable role of midwives in safeguarding life, culture, and community even against formidable odds."" -Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body ""In this book we get to listen to elders, warriors, guides whose love, care and support for the autonomy of people giving birth models the world we deserve."" -Alexis Pauline Gumbs, author of Survival Is a Promise- The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde ""A book we need to read, as across the world we face a relentless war against the main conditions of our reproduction."" -Silvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch and Wages Against Housework During the twelve-year-long Salvadoran civil war, mothers and guerrilla fighters attended births out of necessity. While fleeing airstrikes, in caves and beneath mango trees, with no electricity or running water, these women became parteras-community midwives-and began to care for pregnant people in rural areas and refugee camps who could not access medical care. In 1994, in the wake of the armed struggle, the Association of Midwives Rosa Andrade (APRA) was born. Compiled from oral histories gathered in 2019 by Salvadoran American birth worker Noemi Delgado, this bilingual anthology weaves together testimonies from twenty members of APRA to tell a collective story of midwifery and community care in revolutionary El Salvador. In Guardianas, the beauty of the testimonies, and the care with which they were collected, come together to safeguard a vision of a world rooted in fierce bravery, dignity, and ancestral wisdom. // Durante los doce anos de guerra civil en El Salvador, madres y guerrilleras asistieron a parturientas. Mientras se refugiaban de ataques aereos, dentro de cuevas y bajo arboles de mango, sin electricidad o agua corriente, estas mujeres vueltas parteras comenzaron a cuidar a personas embarazadas en areas rurales y campos de refugiados que no podian acceder a cuidado medicos. En 1994, tras la lucha armada, naci la Asociaci n de Parteras Rosa Andrade (APRA). Compilado de historias orales recolectadas en 2019 por la trabajadora de partos salvadorena-estadounidense Noemi Delgado, esta antologia biling e entreteje testimonios de veinte miembros de la APRA para relatar un cuento colectivo de parteria y cuidado comunal en El Salvador revolucionario. En Guardianas, la belleza de los testimonios, y el cuidado con el que fueron recolectados, juntos resguardan una visi n del mundo enraizado en coraje feroz, dignidad y conocimiento ancestral.

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9781644214763

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""Guardianas documents the efforts and struggles that midwives in El Salvador have been making to help women to be in control of birth-giving and, against the government’s orders, refuse hospitalization. Built through the memories of women who lived and worked through the ‘counterinsurgency’ war, Guardianas is a powerful, inspiring testimony of communal solidarity and resistance. It is a book we need to read, as across the world we face a relentless war against the main conditions of our reproduction."" —Silvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch and Wages Against Housework ""Guardianas offers us back the listening that has been stolen from us by medicalized birth systems and alienated healthcare. In this book we get to listen to elders, warriors, guides whose love, care and support for the autonomy of people giving birth models the world we deserve."" —Alexis Pauline Gumbs, author of Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde and M Archive: After the End of the World ""For survivors and descendants of colonial violence, what is more miraculous than the birth of a child, whose first breath holds the possibility of a future that is free? This powerful, poignant collection of testimonies by El Salvador’s midwives, who have lived through the grave horror of war, document their courageous work of ushering in new life, in a land where the people have known mass death. Their words defy the patramyths of power built on the erasure of Indigenous people. Their truth, their knowledge, and their immense love for their people comes alive in Guardianas."" —Tanaïs, author of the Kirkus Prize-winning In Sensorium: Notes for My People

Author Information

Founded in 1994, the ASSOCIATION OF MIDWIVES ROSA ANDRADE (APRA) is a group of thirty midwives caring for the reproductive health of thousands of people living in thirty-five rural communities in the municipality of Suchitoto, Cuscatlan, El Salvador. Most of the members of APRA either began or continued the work of attending births during the twelve-year-long civil war from 1979 to 1992, when pregnant people in rural areas and guerrilla and refugee camps could not seek medical attention due to the extreme terror inflicted by the US-backed military dictatorship. Rooted in solidarity and a commitment to their communities, the members of APRA continue to care for pregnant, birthing, and postpartum families today. The current members of APRA include- Maria Melia Martinez Flamenco, Bonifica Ascencio Garcia, Maria Amalia Molina Menjivar, Fredelinda Antonia Recinos de Cer n, Vicenta Martinez, ngela Luz Barahona de valos, Cecilia de Maria Rivera de L pez, Francisca Catalina Blanco Hernandez, Ana Teresa valos, Maria Higinia ""Patricia"" Hernandez, Tomasa Jovita Torres, Natividad Escobar de Henriquez, Lucia Rutilia Gonzalez, Maria Martina Lucero, Maria Dolores Hernandez de Rivera, Vilma Coreas Guzman, Reina Marlenis Escobar Figueroa, Maria de los ngeles Acosta Ard n, Sandra Maricela Flores, Maria Magdalena Rodas Arias, Dolores Margarita Marroquin de Hernandez, Estela Villacorta Rivas, Angelica de la Paz Martinez Le n, Morena Eli Orellana Menjivar, Sonia Alicia Cruz Montoya, Yessenia de Jesos Canjura Trejo, Pedrina ngela Calder n, Maria Antonia Landaverde, Emilia Marinet Sanchez, and Marina Martinez. Residence- Suchitoto, El Salvador. NOEM DELGADO is a birth worker, body worker, and childbirth educator. Born in California, she began her birthwork journey while living and working with midwives in her family's homeland of El Salvador. She accompanied the Association of Midwives Rosa Andrade during a Public Health Fulbright Fellowship in 2019. She is codirector of Matronas- The Struggle to Protect Birth in El Salvador (2021), which was an Official Selection at the San Diego Latino Film Festival and the Oakland Short Film Festival and was nominated for Best Short Documentary at the fifteenth Annual BronzeLens Film Festival. Delgado is dedicated to uplifting ancestral wisdom and challenging the systems that attempt to erase it; Guardianas and Matronas are a part of that effort. Residence- San Francisco, CA. EMMA LLOYD is a translator and writer working across genres-from poetry to narrative to film subtitles. Her ongoing translation of Pedro Lemebel's De perlas y cicatrices (Of Pearls and Scars) won a 2019 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant. She is the translator of Julieta Vittore Dutto's debut poetry collection, Un lugar interminable (An Endless Place) (2022), as well as subtitles for Tatiana Huezo's Prayers for the Stolen (2021) and Mattis Appelqvist Dalton and Matteo Robert Morales's The Time of the Fireflies (2022). She has a master's from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York and is currently pursuing a PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Alongside her translation work, Emma works at Safe Passage Project, an immigration justice organization. Residence- Berkeley, CA. LUZ DEL CARMEN SALAMA-TOBAR is a Salvadoran artist, photographer, and organizer. Born in Sonsonate, El Salvador, land of the Nahuat-Pipil people, and raised in Falls Church, Virginia, after immigrating to the US, her work centers around her community. She received her BFA in Photography at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2018 and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 2019, during which time she taught as a visiting scholar at the University Don Bosco in San Salvador and began work with Kuna Nawat, an early immersion language program taught by the last native speakers of the Nahuat language. She is cofounder of the Virginia-based abolitionist organization La ColectiVA and is currently pursuing her masters in photography at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts. Residence- Washington, D.C.

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