De cuerpo entero violeta parra biography

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In the 1990s when I was conducting research on the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral, I used to travel with my grandmother Josefina to the small town of Montegrande where Gabriela spent her childhood. Before arriving at our final destination in the Elqui Valley, we would spend the night in the majestic colonial city of La Serena that awakens the senses. I always enjoyed walking around the Francisco de Aguirre Sculpture Parkthat is located there.Many of the statues there were replicas of classical Greek and Italian works. At night I used to think about the peace emanating from the immobility of the statues, but I also used to reflect with a feeling of apprehension that, in Chile, and in the other countries in Latin America, the majority of the statues of Chile’s heroes were, and continue to be, of men. The presence of sculptures of women was scant, almost nonexistent. 

Those statues made me ask myself where were the extraordinary women who had also contributed significantly to the creation of the nation? Throughout Chile there are statues of heroes like Arturo Prat, perhaps the most famous hero of the Chilean Navy who lived in the 19th century and died during the War of the Pacific, and General Baquedano, a