Inhabiting Memory: Essays on Memory and Human Rights in the Americas ed. by Marjorie Agosín (review)

In the introduction to Inhabiting Memory: Essays on Memory and Human Rights in the Americas, we read: “Memory is not always either arbitrary or objective; that is precisely why the act of remembering represents a peculiar way of humanizing history” (xi). Marjorie Agosín brings together a collection of essays to prove that by enacting the always difficult task of remembering particular historical, and often traumatic, moments in the Americas, we are left with the task of learning “how to live with it, how to inhabit it, how to recover one’s identity as a human being” (xix). In this book, it is clear that each of the contributors had either a personal connection to the specific location they write about, or became intrinsically connected with the history they set out to uncover. Part one, titled “Contested Memories,” begins with “Searching for Irma” by June Erlick, an article that focuses on the reconstruction of disappeared Guatemalan journalist Irma Flaquer’s life. It is evident that the culture of fear has continued to exist in Guatemala, and through the process of recovery, people felt that it was more convenient not to remember. As Erlick set out to find out the truth about what happened to Flaquer, she also discovered that a country that lived under systemic violence for decades continues to deal with fear and silence. As a result, the process of prompting memory about the past, especially when this past has been violent, requires relaxation and trust. In the end Erlick is left with two versions of Flaquer’s life that don’t necessarily contradict each other, but rather point to Flaquer’s humanity and vulnerability.

In the next essay, painter Claudia Bernardi has the task of reconstructing the memory of the massacre of El Mozote in El Salvador. On her way to this location she is faced twice with the written and oral memory that “At El Mozote, more than 1,000 people were massacred by the Atlacatl Battalion in December of 1981” (30). Working in the exhumation of skeletons that Bernardi will later use in her art work, she is met with the sudden realization of past violence, hurt, and interrupted lives. Perhaps even more disturbing is the realization that those who inflicted such pain also carry with them the memory of having killed, for example, a young girl and her unborn child, and knowing that “whoever was responsible for the massacre is still alive” (30). Bernardi and her team inevitably connect to the bones they unearth. Touching and holding delicate skeletons turned-to-dust, along with the coins and a red button found in a girl’s garment, are evidence that mass murder has occurred in this town. The third essay in this section deals with the validity of individual and collective memories in Post-Pinochet Chile. Peter Wing considers Chile’s “pact of silence” used to prevent certain memories from continuing to exist; in others words, the pact blocked “inconvenient truths” from being published. However, repressed horrific memories of abuse will only return with great force, as Freud explains, and memories “cannot be controlled by official proclamations or blue ribbon reports” (59) of half-truths. Of particular importance in this section is the way the authors are personally touched by the secret erased memories they uncovered.

Part two of this multidisciplinary collection of essays brings us to the way memory is manifested in the use of artifacts and cultural productions, such as quilts, writing, monuments, and music. Marita Sturken writes about the AIDS Memorial Quilt as a site where cultural memory is filled with personal memories that seek to bring comfort and warmth to those left behind, a type of collectivity meant to account for lives taken. But the quilt is not free of controversy. Although the value of the quilt brings peace to many, it also raises political, class, and gender issues. For example, some fear that the experience of catharsis...