Published by University of New Mexico Press
In this groundbreaking new study on ladinas in Guatemala City, Patricia Harms contests the virtual erasure of women from the country’s national memory and its historical consciousness. Harms focuses on Spanish-speaking women during the “revolutionary decade” and the “liberalism” periods, revealing a complex, significant, and palpable feminist movement that emerged in Guatemala during the 1870s and remained until 1954. During this era ladina social activists not only struggled to imagine a place for themselves within the political and social constructs of modern Guatemala, but they also wrestled with ways to critique and identify Guatemala’s gendered structures within the context of repressive dictatorial political regimes and entrenched patriarchy. Harms’s study of these women and their struggles fills a sizeable gap in the growing body of literature on women’s suffrage, social movements, and political culture in modern Latin America. It is a valuable addition to students and scholars studying the rich history of the region.
Subjects: HistoryLatin AmericaAHA21LASA21
AcknowledgmentsList of IllustrationsIntroduction. Because Everyone Has ForgottenChapter One. Writing Women into History, 1871–1930Chapter Two. Dictating Feminisms: Women and Gender in Ubico’s Guatemala, 1930–1944Chapter Three. A Small Payment for a Large Debt: Maternal Feminism, Revolutionary Mothers, and the Social Revolution, 1944–1950Chapter Four. We Are Already Citizens: Suffrage, Gender, the Catholic Church, and Revolutionary Politics, 1944–1950Chapter Five. Even a Grain of Sand: Urban Ladinas, the Cold War, and the First Inter-American Congress of Women, Guatemala City, 1947Chapter Six. Living in the World We Imagined: The Alianza Femenina Guatemalteca, Socialist Feminism, and the Cold War, 1950–1954Chapter Seven. God Doesn’t Like the Revolution: The Archbishop, the Market Women, and the Gender of Economy, 1944–1954Epilogue: The Return to SilenceAppendix A: Naming the NamelessAppendix B: Guatemalan Female Jobs Profile, 1920–1950Appendix C: School Attendance, 1950Appendix D: Number of Teachers, 1950NotesBibliographyIndex
