Children Lost, Children Found: Literature, Education, and Memory
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Children Lost, Children Found: Literature, Education, and Memory in Transitional Argentina (1982-2000) by Brittany Nichole Maugeri A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History and Women’s Studies) in the University of Michigan 2018 Doctoral Committee: Professor Paulina Laura Alberto, Chair Professor Sueann Caulfield Professor Mary C. Kelley Professor Ruby Tapia “But why can't everyone have the memories? I think it would seem a little easier if the memories were shared. You and I wouldn't have to bear so much by ourselves, if everybody took a part." -Lois Lowry, The Giver “Once, in my father's bookshop, I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later—no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget—we will return.” -Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind Brittany Nichole Maugeri [email protected] ORCID ID: 0000-0002-4678-239X ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Research for this dissertation was made possible by grants and funding from the Rackham Graduate School and the History and Women’s Studies Departments of the University of Michigan. This dissertation is the fruit of many years of work and would not have been possible without the support and guidance of mentors, colleagues, and friends. My deepest gratitude to Paulina Alberto, in addition to reading and editing various drafts of this dissertation, she has provided the truest example of what it means to be an educator, scholar, writer, and empathetic human being. As my advisor, she has shaped my pedagogical praxis, guided my writing, and helped me overcome personal adversity. I am forever grateful. My thanks also extend to my committee members: Mary Kelley, Sueann Caulfield, and Ruby Tapia, whose scholarship has inspired me throughout the past several years, and whose feedback and conversations have supported my intellectual growth and guided this dissertation. Thanks to my colleagues with whom I’ve shared the joys and woes of graduate school, whose works have inspired me and whose conversations have enriched my scholarship, especially: Diana Sierra Becerra, Austin McCoy, Kevin Goodman, and Mickenzie Fasteland. Thank you to my family— Jane Maugeri, Brielle Maugeri, and Deborah Kennelly—who have supported me through this journey. Heartfelt thanks to my friends: Kate Harman, who has been a grounding force through this project; Chynna Broxton, for your constant encouragement, compassion, and kindness; Emily Tarafo for reading chapter drafts and enduring late-night conversation about transitional ii Argentina from halfway across the world. Finally, thank you to Matthew, my partner, for being by my side. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii ABSTRACT v INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I. Protagonists in the Classroom: Defining the Democratic Child in 21 Transitional Education Reforms II. Civic Education, School Texts, and National Morality in 59 Dictatorship and Transition III. Children Disappeared and Present: 115 Activism and the Construction of the Figurative Child IV. Graciela Montes: Writing the Dictatorship into Argentina History 145 through Children’s Literature V. Human Rights Education in Argentina 193 VI. Writing for Children and Writing the Child in Literary Magazines 239 CONCLUSION 288 BIBLIOGRAPHY 301 iv ABSTRACT Research for this dissertation was made possible by grants and funding from the Rackham Graduate School and the History and Women’s Studies Departments of the University of Michigan. This dissertation is the fruit of many years of work and would not have been possible without the support and guidance of mentors, colleagues, and friends. My deepest gratitude to Paulina Alberto, in addition to reading and editing various drafts of this dissertation, she has provided the truest example of what it means to be an educator, scholar, writer, and empathetic human being. As my advisor, she has shaped my pedagogical praxis, guided my writing, and helped me overcome personal adversity. I am forever grateful. My thanks also extend to my committee members: Mary Kelley, Sueann Caulfield, and Ruby Tapia, whose scholarship has inspired me throughout the past several years, and whose feedback and conversations have supported my intellectual growth and guided this dissertation. Thanks to my colleagues with whom I’ve shared the joys and woes of graduate school, whose works have inspired me and whose conversations have enriched my scholarship, especially: Diana Sierra Becerra, Austin McCoy, Kevin Goodman, and Mickenzie Fasteland. Thank you to my family— Jane Maugeri, Brielle Maugeri, and Deborah Kennelly—who have supported me through this journey. Heartfelt thanks to my friends: Kate Harman, who has been a grounding force through this project; Chynna Broxton, for your constant encouragement, compassion, and kindness; Emily Tarafo for reading chapter drafts and enduring late-night conversation about transitional v Argentina from halfway across the world. Finally, thank you to Matthew, my partner, for being by my side. vi INTRODUCTION Once upon a time, not so very long ago, a military dictatorship governed Argentina with repression, clandestine violence, disappearances, and silence. From 1976-1983, the regime that called itself El proceso de reorganización nacional waged what they called a Guerra Sucia, or Dirty War, against subversion in the nation. This historical moment was one of the most brutal in Argentine history. The dictatorship targeted workers’ unions, intellectuals, and political dissidents, resulting in the disappearance, torture, and killing of approximately 9000 to 30000 people. Due to the clandestine policies of the military regime—secret torture centers, disposal of bodies in the river or mass graves, and the destruction of records—the exact numbers or identities of those who were killed will likely never been known. The story of the Argentine proceso is fraught with tragedy, uncertainty, anger, sorrow, exhaustion, and fear. Yet I chose to begin my engagement with this subject with ‘once upon a time,’ a narrative framework almost exclusively linked with children’s stories and childhood. How does this narrative juxtaposition shape our encounter with the subject of dictatorship—is it jarring, irreverent, or overly simplistic? Does it serve to distance us from the material by placing the dictatorship in a faraway land? Or do the words trigger an affective connection that moves the dictatorship closer to our own sense of self, situating it more firmly within our imaginative and affective landscape? This dissertation examines the powerful relationship between childhood, historical memory, and national identity. During the transition back to democracy throughout the 1980s and 1990s, adults understood children as the inheritors of a violent past and as the potential 1 gateway to a more promising future. Whether that future could best be reached through protecting children as innocents or allowing them to engage directly with ‘mature’ themes was contested, creating a spectrum of ways that adults presented, and children absorbed, concepts relating to nation, history, memory, and trauma. Children played a vital role in the transitional period. Adults debated questions about memory, trauma, history, and nation at the same time that they challenged and refigured definitions of childhood and the role of children within the state. These adults, whether officials at the Ministry of Education or the UNESCO, children’s authors, teachers, parents, illustrators, or activists, articulated their concerns about a newly democratized state and their anxieties about a traumatic past through engagement with children and their conceptualizations of the role of “the child” within the dictatorship and the democracy. During the transitional period, adults, anxious about the Argentine past, present, and future frequently turned toward children as touchstones for their anxieties. How had children been involved in the dictatorship? How aware were they or should they be about what had happened? How had children been harmed? How could children be protected from this legacy of violence? Should they be? What role did these children have to play in the future? What stories should they be told about the past? This dissertation moves children from the margins to the center of national historical political narratives about the dictatorship and transition. It examines the ways in which various groups of adults sought to shape Argentine children’s engagement with the recent past. More broadly, it analyzes the relationship between adults’ creation of a “figurative” child as both hero and victim of the state during the transition, and the ways that distinct groups of adults shaped the experiences of actual children in that historical moment. Children’s authors, legislators, and activists defined the parameters of childhood along a scale ranging from direct engagement to 2 enforced ignorance. As they did so, they defined what it meant to be a child, and what Argentina should and could be. Adults understood children as an integral part of a nation moving from a traumatic past into an uncertain future. This dissertation offers the first comprehensive analysis of childhood and the “child” during this moment, through the books, policies, and media that defined their