Author’s Note

On March 24, 1976, Juan Perón’s third wife and widow, Isabel, was removed from her troubled presidency in a coup d’état that marked the beginning of a dark period in Argentina’s history.

In the years that followed, with General Jorge Videla at the helm, Argentina’s military dictatorship endeavored to eradicate all forms of subversion through the National Reorganization Process that reached beyond those engaged in armed actions against the state. “A terrorist,” Videla stated, “is not just someone with a gun or a bomb, but also someone who spreads ideas that are contrary to Western and Christian civilization” (The Times, London, January 4, 1978).

Between 1976 and 1983, human-rights groups have estimated that thirty thousand people “disappeared” in Argentina. The majority were men and women in their twenties and early thirties who posed a real or ideological threat to the military junta. They were members of leftist political organizations, militants, and activists—but also trade unionists, journalists, students, artists, and teachers. This campaign of political repression was part of Operation Condor, a US-backed coordination of intelligence between South American countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, and, to an extent, Peru.

The “disappeared” were captured, held in clandestine detention centers, subject to torture, and killed. Information as to their whereabouts was systemically withheld. The authorities’ circumvention and obstruction of the legal process left family members of the missing with no recourse or closure, a form of psychological warfare that was highly effective in creating a state of terror. This period became known as the guerra sucia, or “dirty war”—language evocative of the guerrilla warfare preceding the dictatorship that more aptly came to describe the tactics used by the military regime.

It was in this climate of fear that a group of mothers—the Madres de Plaza de Mayo—risked persecution to join together and organize. They resisted the silence imposed by the junta and demanded answers as to the whereabouts of their daughters and sons. They gathered in the Plaza de Mayo wearing white headscarves and held pictures of their missing children.

Among the missing were pregnant women and young couples with babies who were kidnapped along with their parents. The mothers in search of missing grandchildren formed their own group—the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo—and began documenting the estimated five hundred cases of babies known to have been born in captivity or captured with their parents. These babies were believed to have been put up for adoption or given to military officers or law enforcement officials and raised with no knowledge of their biological identity.

Since 1977 the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo have been working tirelessly to find and restore the identities of the children of “the disappeared,” gaining human-rights support on a global scale despite tremendous obstacles. In the 1980s they were responsible for breakthrough advancements in genetic testing with the help of American geneticist Dr. Mary-Claire King, who used mitochondrial DNA inherited exclusively from mothers to show a familial relationship between a child and its maternal relatives. The Abuelas were a driving force in the establishment of the National Commission for the Right to Identity and the National Bank of Genetic Data in Argentina, providing a path for anyone with doubts about their biological identity. The work of the Abuelas contributed significantly to the repeal of the amnesty laws that protected members of the military from prosecution for their war crimes—laws that were not declared unconstitutional until the 2000s.

The Abuelas have continued to evolve their approach throughout each phase of their missing grandchildren’s lives, unwavering in their tenacity and commitment to identity and truth. They were awarded the UNESCO Peace Prize in 2010 for their “tireless battle for human rights and peace by standing up to oppression, injustice, and impunity” and have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize numerous times.

For over forty-six years, the Abuelas have been searching for their grandchildren, and as of this writing, they have found and identified one hundred and thirty-seven of them. Their search continues.

As a graduate student, I had the great privilege of getting to know the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo while conducting field research for my master’s thesis in Argentina. The Abuelas were celebrating their twenty-fifth year as I was celebrating mine. I worked with the Archivo Biográfico Familiar de Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, an initiative founded in partnership with the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires. The mission of the Archivo was to collect and preserve testimony from family members of desaparecidos for the purpose of creating personalized context for adult grandchildren whose identities might one day be restored.

The intention of the archives was to answer questions a reappropriated child might ask about their parents: What were they really like? What were their favorite foods, sports teams, songs? What were their beliefs and dreams? These intimate details were gathered from surviving family members who, in some cases, hadn’t recounted these stories or memories aloud since their loved ones went missing. The work of the Archivo was emotional, healing, and inherently hopeful.

Much of my time in Argentina was spent with founders of the Archivo around my own age—children of desaparecidos in search of siblings born between 1976 and 1983. Many grandmothers, mothers, family members, and adult children of desaparecidos welcomed me into their homes and shared their stories. Some had only recently been reunited with their biological families.

My research also included interviews with Federal Judge Gabriel Cavallo, whose ruling on Argentina’s amnesty laws ultimately rendered them unconstitutional, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Adolfo Esquivel, former prisoner and activist Mario Villani, Argentine sociologist Daniel Feierstein, members of the musical group Los Pericos and the theatrical troupe Teatro X la Identidad, and others. I attended an escrache organized by the Hijos por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio (H.I.J.O.S.), the Independence Day marches of July 9 in Buenos Aires, and toured former prisons and excavation sites including Club Atletico and La Escuela Superior de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA).

After returning to New York and completing my thesis, I remained tremendously interested in the work of the Abuelas and the experience of the reappropriated children of my generation whose identities were stolen during the “dirty war.” As the daughter of a Vietnam veteran, I wanted to better understand the military involvement of the United States in Operation Condor. Over time, these explorations led to the writing of this novel.

As a work of fiction written by a non-Argentine author, The Disappeared offers a dramatized and reductive view of this history. I encourage you, reader, to embark on your own learning about the real events of the rich and enigmatic history of Argentina, the courageous work of the mothers and grandmothers of Argentina, and the often undertaught role of the United States in South American regimes.

AUTHOR’S NOTE