Let Me Speak!

Let Me Speak!, just published by Monthly Review Press (see ad on page 55) is the story of Domitila Barrios de Chungara, told by herself and recorded by Moema Viezzer, a Brazilian journalist and anthropologist. Domitila, daughter of a Bolivian tin miner and wife of a miner, mother of seven children, leader of the "Housewives' Committee of the Siglo XX Mines," has been a longtime participant in the fierce and often bloody struggles of the mining community in its confrontations with the mine administrators and their "advisers" from the CIA and the U.S. embassy. Le Monde Diplomatique, on the occasion of the book's publication in French, had this to say about it: "It is rare that a voice is given to a woman of the people, who, struggling for daily bread, politicizes herself and becomes a leader of her people.… At the mines it was often the women who decided to start a strike when the cupboard was bare.... Domitila understands much—she whose child was aborted in prison under torture…" The following are excerpts from Domitila's moving and profoundly perceptive account. The translation is by Victoria Ortiz. —The EditorsThis article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.