Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Argentina and the quest for identity

Following on from the previous post which referenced a post Do You Have a Right to Know Your Father? | Clarissa's Blog, here's one on the same theme, but far worse than children merely growing up in ignorance of their real identity.

Cori's Blog: Argentina and the quest for identity:
I was in Buenos Aires last week attending a conference on genocide. One of the topics that was discussed at some length was the 30 000 people who 'dissapeared' there during the dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s. Some political activists who were kidnapped had their babies taken from them and they were then adopted by military families. We heard the stories of women who had lived their entire lives believing themselves to be the children of particular military people, only to discover in their thirties that their entire identity has been a lie.


One of the things that makes me curious was that the stories Cori heard were from women. Were there no male babies? And if there were, what happened to them? Were they all killed off with their parents? Or didn't it bother them that their adoptive fathers had killed their real fathers? Did it only bother the women?

3 comments:

Clarissa said...

What's so bad about my post?

I actually thought you liked it. It's perfectly fine to dislike my posts. I'm just wondering.

Steve Hayes said...

I did like your post, and don't think there was anything wrong with it at all. I was just referring to Cori's post as another instance of what you were talking about, but worse, in a way, because in the cases you mentioned the adoptive fathers had not murdered the real fathers. What was bad was not your post, but children gowing up in ignorance of their real identity. I'll have to see if I can reword it.

Clarissa said...

Oh, sorry, I misunderstood. I must be thinking in Spanish where "worse" means of even lower quality than the original.

Of course, the male adoptees suffered, too. There is a great film (very popular in Argentina) that portrays a male adoptee and what happens to him in the future:

http://www.amazon.com/Vidas-Privadas-Cecilia-Roth/dp/B00066FBEI/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1311754518&sr=8-15

The title is Vidas Privadas (Private Lives) and it's subtitled in English. I highly recommend but it's very painful to watch.

Also, I wanted to express my thanks for quoting my blog so often. I deeply appreciate it. My father, who converted to the Orthodox Church at the age of 54, is super excited that I follow your blog and you follow mine.