Haley Cohen Gilliland talks about her guide, “A Flower Traveled In My Blood,” concerning the work of the Abuelas of the Plaza de Mayo and the way Argentina’s stolen youngsters have grappled with discovering their place in historical past.
SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
There is a Spanish time period that arose in Argentina throughout its navy dictatorship that also brings chills to many individuals there. It is los desaparecidos. It means the disappeared. It refers to a traumatic interval of the nation’s historical past within the Seventies and Eighties when 1000’s of individuals have been kidnapped, tortured and simply vanished. Some later confirmed up useless, many others have been by no means discovered. Haley Cohen Gilliland was a reporter in Argentina for years, and one thing particularly about that tragic historical past haunted her.
HALEY COHEN GILLILAND: I turned completely obsessive about the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, a extremely intrepid group of grandmothers that banded collectively at immense threat to themselves when individuals have been nonetheless disappearing in droves in Argentina, to search out these stolen infants, their stolen grandchildren.
PFEIFFER: Now Gilliland has written a guide a few group of moms and grandmothers who devoted themselves to discovering their lacking youngsters and grandchildren. It is known as “A Flower Traveled In My Blood,” and Haley Cohen Gilliland joins us now to speak about her guide. Hello, Haley.
GILLILAND: Hello, Sacha. Thanks for having me.
PFEIFFER: This group of moms and grandmothers began small, they usually endured a variety of disappointment and harassment alongside the way in which. Describe that evolution from being written off to commanding respect.
GILLILAND: Every week, they gathered in entrance of the presidential palace at 3:30 on the dot to march arm-in-arm across the monument there, finally tying white diapers over their heads in reminiscence of their youngsters and to attract extra consideration to their trigger. And their circle began very small, as you talked about, however every week, it grew bigger and bigger and bigger, as a result of so many individuals have been disappearing and their family members have been on the lookout for them, that after a few months, the circle had grown to tons of. And it was inconceivable for the federal government to disregard anymore.
PFEIFFER: When it comes to the size of the numbers of lacking individuals, how many individuals whole after which what number of infants? What number of youngsters are we speaking about?
GILLILAND: Estimates of how many individuals disappeared throughout Argentina’s dictatorship proceed to be blurry. And that could be a signal of the dictatorship’s success in its mission to not solely commit these crimes however obscure the proof of them such that the precise variety of desaparecidos will doubtless by no means be identified. Essentially the most broadly accepted estimate that’s promoted by human rights teams in Argentina is 30,000. And the abuelas estimate that amongst these 30,000 Argentines that have been disappeared, there have been tons of of pregnant girls, and 500 infants have been stolen.
PFEIFFER: The work these girls have been doing to publicize this was emotionally agonizing. It was additionally harmful. It additionally concerned sophisticated investigative work. I am considering, what drove them to do that?
GILLILAND: There was a drive inside them that was a lot stronger than concern, and that was the love for his or her youngsters who had disappeared and in addition their craving for his or her grandchildren, the one remnants of their youngsters that have been left on the Earth. And so these forces overwhelmed their concern and drove them ahead, even after they acknowledged that doing so was immensely harmful they usually would possibly face the identical destiny as their youngsters had for doing it.
PFEIFFER: On the identical time these terrifying kidnappings have been taking place – generally in broad daylight, individuals snatched off the road – Buenos Aires was this cosmopolitan metropolis. The 2 photos do not match. You even wrote about what you name the phantasm of Argentina as a cultured place filled with civilized individuals. How do you clarify that disconnect?
GILLILAND: The navy’s mission was to purge Argentina of anybody that it deemed, quote, “to have concepts that have been opposite to Western and Christian civilization.” But it surely did not need proof of that purge to achieve the surface world – both to achieve Argentina or to achieve the worldwide neighborhood. And to be able to commit this purge quietly, it relied on disappearances. And so as a substitute of killing individuals and conserving information of these extrajudicial murders, the navy’s important method of killing individuals was to sedate them, load them into planes, strip them of their clothes, after which fly up above the river – the vast and highly effective river – the Rio de la Plata that runs subsequent to Buenos Aires, and push them out over the river in order that the present would take their our bodies away.
PFEIFFER: Proper. These are loss of life flights – simply appalling.
GILLILAND: Dying flights, completely appalling – through the dictatorship, silence and terror actually reigned. And that prolonged to the establishments that normally make clear injustices taking place in a rustic. And so the media was utterly silenced, each out of concern, as a result of numerous journalists have been disappeared throughout this era, and generally out of complicity, as a result of there have been shops that agreed with the navy’s ideology and weren’t reporting for that motive.
Additionally, the Argentine church had a really tightly intertwined relationship with the navy, and the navy was very influenced by Catholic ideology. And in some circumstances, Catholic clergymen really participated in a few of the torture and disappearances. And so the establishments that might usually decry these kind of occasions remained silent throughout this era, which allowed the navy to proceed on with its brutality with out the vast majority of the Argentine public actually catching on for a really very long time.
PFEIFFER: Your guide has a variety of historical past. It has a variety of politics. It additionally has a variety of science as a result of over time, there have been genetic developments that helped establish lacking individuals and show who their dad and mom or grandparents have been.
GILLILAND: So a few of the grandmothers had met their grandchildren earlier than they have been taken away. They have been taken in raids alongside their dad and mom after they have been infants or toddlers. And in these circumstances, these grandmothers maybe knew their names, knew their sexes, knew their eye colours – issues like that. However most of the grandmothers had by no means met their grandchildren. They have been taken away when nonetheless in utero, and they also did not know something about them. And so they have been very prescient and realized early on that they would wish to discover a device to establish these grandchildren that was goal, that might permit them to hyperlink themselves to their grandchildren, and in addition one thing so convincing {that a} courtroom would settle for it and return these grandchildren to their rightful households. And so they acknowledged these solutions would most likely come from science.
And so they began touring the world and speaking to any scientists who would pay attention and asking them whether or not they might assist develop a grandpaternity check. And this was the late Seventies, early Eighties, earlier than DNA testing was broadly out there. Paternity testing was out there, however grandpaternity testing had by no means been performed. And they also met largely with shrugs till finally they have been related with an American geneticist named Dr. Mary-Claire King. Collectively, the abuelas and Dr. King have been in a position to develop a pioneering new type of genetic testing known as the grandpaternity index that allowed the abuelas to attach themselves to their stolen grandchildren genetically at a time when that was utterly unparalleled.
PFEIFFER: The science was usually proving that sure individuals have been elevating a stolen child. However then feelings got here in as a result of generally by the point these stolen children have been recognized, they hadn’t seen their actual dad and mom or grandparents since they have been infants. They generally needed to stick with their adoptive dad and mom, even when they have been stolen. That induced a variety of strife and heartbreak. Clarify how that generally performed out.
GILLILAND: What the abuelas found as they have been profitable of their efforts to search out their grandchildren was that discovering the grandchildren was not all the time probably the most tough state of affairs that they encountered. When their grandchildren have been nonetheless minors and beneath the age of 18, they often needed to confront actually fierce custody battles with these different households who had stolen their grandchildren however didn’t need to give them up. And in different circumstances, as you talked about, particularly as soon as the grandchildren reached an age the place they have been in a position to categorical themselves to the media, these grandchildren generally expressed a need to stick with the household that had raised them since they have been infants, even understanding that they weren’t their true, organic households. And this was extraordinarily tough for the abuelas to navigate, they usually had completely different responses in numerous conditions.
PFEIFFER: Argentina actually struggled with transfer ahead after a trauma like this. Do you forgive and neglect? How a lot do you dwell on the previous once you’re attempting to heal? Describe that debate over balancing peace with justice.
GILLILAND: Argentina has actually wrestled with grapple with the trauma of that interval. And these debates are very stay. This continues to play out in Argentina to at the present time. The present president of Argentina, Javier Milei, promotes a really completely different model of what occurred through the dictatorship than human rights teams do. He views what occurred through the dictatorship interval as a justified battle through which, quote, “excesses” have been dedicated, and he has clashed continually with human rights teams since holding workplace. And it is a very tense time for the abuelas and their work, however they proceed on with their mission to immediately, resolutely. And truly, simply earlier this month, they have been in a position to get well a grandchild. So these larger questions of obtain peace and reconciliation and therapeutic have continued on to immediately, as has the grandmother’s mission.
PFEIFFER: Haley Cohen Gilliland is the writer of “A Flower Traveled In My Blood.” Haley, thanks.
GILLILAND: Thanks a lot, Sacha.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALLAH-LAS’ “NO WEREWOLF”)
Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Go to our web site phrases of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for additional data.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts could fluctuate. Transcript textual content could also be revised to right errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org could also be edited after its authentic broadcast or publication. The authoritative report of NPR’s programming is the audio report.
