{"id":5996,"date":"2020-02-14T08:00:48","date_gmt":"2020-02-14T16:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/?p=5996&lang=en"},"modified":"2020-02-14T11:31:51","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T19:31:51","slug":"love-letter-to-my-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/women\/love-letter-to-my-friends\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Love Letter to my Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Keren Escobar<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a girl I didn\u2019t have sisters, but I have them now. A family isn\u2019t necessarily defined by blood, rather it is formed by those who lend an ear, voice, hand or heart when needed. I\u2019ve fallen in love with the networks of women that have been woven between women in Mexico, the United States and Central America, crossing borders, overcoming physical distances, and seemingly manipulating temporal distances, as they always find time and space to cry, learn, support, yell or dance together.<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s not all sunshine and flowers, as there are gray days when we ask ourselves to what point we as women actively control our lives and what the consequence is of social forces that are out of our control. We, our mothers, grandmothers, are all victims of victims, of a systemic cycle. Who will break it? Have we begun to form a chink in the armor that has controlled us and kept us sad for so many generations?<\/p>\n

These and other questions stalk us in a hostile environment that seeks to ridicule that which is feminine and exemplify weakness. If only they would let us be so that we may be allowed to seek to become something greater, but\u2026maybe we just have to dare to try. I have seen a resurgence of women once confused by love disguised as selfishness who now fly high but lower themselves when needed to cry with other women, who fall down by making mistakes, but are able to build themselves back up and rise again.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s beautiful to know that I have been able to hug so many brave women, like you, friend, who decided that nobody would tell you that you could or could not put on makeup, that you could not cut your hair, get a tattoo, drive a truck or have a glass of wine. You who became a warrior and now live alone, making music, reading philosophy and accepting with dignity that you can fall in love as many times as necessary.<\/p>\n

You, friend, who walks carrying your camera and recorder, questioning our political, economic and social system, doing your job well, though you may not be paid well and though you are discriminated against for being a woman and though they want to censor you for saying what so many keep quiet.<\/p>\n

You, friend, who travels far from home, from your family, friendships and familiar streets, who drives through traffic to go to work, though the men stare at you with abusive gazes.<\/p>\n

You who returns home tired and alone to sleep with the conviction that independence is the way.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m fortunate to see your fight, friends. What an honor to see how you have had faith in yourselves and gotten involved in politics in a system designed for men, by men! What a joy to see how you have risen up as defenders of Mother Earth and the peasant, fearlessly denouncing and making proposals. What satisfaction to see that thanks to our efforts we are creating spaces where we have influence and becoming feminists!<\/p>\n

Thank you, friend, for teaching me that, though we may be a conservative machista society, this doesn\u2019t mean that we are unable to change that fact. I think about how you get up at the crack of dawn to say goodbye to your children and your mother before going to work in the city, no matter that you\u2019ve been abandoned or that you\u2019ve been told that you can\u2019t, or that you\u2019re too young, weak, or soft. I think in how you have been able to study in the university, get an important job, take care of yourself and return to sleep in that maternal womb where your family awaits you.<\/p>\n

When I think that everything is determined by a controlling and wicked system that attacks us with violence, fear, ignorance and pathetic moralism, I see the solid steps that all of the brave and independent women have taken. Then, I sail with hope towards new horizons, where we can all be a bit, or even much, freer, without determinism, repression, nor painful legacies.<\/p>\n

Thank you, sisters, for teaching me so much.<\/p>\n

With love for all of women, my friends, especially Jacky, Vonnie, Yuse, Emma Vicente, and Allison.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Keren Escobar As a girl I didn\u2019t have sisters, but I have them now. A family isn\u2019t necessarily defined by blood, rather it is formed by those who lend an ear, voice, hand or heart when needed. I\u2019ve fallen in love with the networks of women that have been woven between women in Mexico, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6005,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[455,422],"tags":[1353,1218,1846],"class_list":["post-5996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pagetwo-en","category-women","tag-feminism","tag-human-rights","tag-no-violencie-against-women"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/mujeres-al-poder.jpg?fit=2757%2C2029&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7ljt7-1yI","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7146,"url":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/politics\/the-bones-still-speak\/?lang=en","url_meta":{"origin":5996,"position":0},"title":"The Bones Still Speak: The War in Guatemala","author":"EntreMundos","date":"5 agosto, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a critic of the book Guatemala: Eternal Spring, Eternal Tyranny. If the bones of the dead speak why should the living be quiet? -Humberto Ak\u2019 abal, K\u2019iche\u2019 Maya poet (1952-2019) By Jason Klarl It\u2019s dawn, or maybe dusk.\u00a0 A young guerrillero in the EGP holds a machine gun\u2026","rel":"","context":"En \u00abCorruption\u00bb","block_context":{"text":"Corruption","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/category\/politics\/corruption\/?lang=en"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/167.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/167.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/167.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/167.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/167.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":151,"url":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/uncategorized-es\/the-blame-game-rapists-not-victims-cause-rape\/","url_meta":{"origin":5996,"position":1},"title":"The Blame Game: Rapists (Not Victims) Cause Rape","author":"EntreMundos","date":"5 marzo, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Laurel Carlton \u201cIt was partially her fault for walking alone late at night.\u201d A Guatemalan friend made that comment in 2011, when I told him that a woman had been raped in the street just three blocks from my apartment in Zone 1. We got into a heated argument about\u2026","rel":"","context":"En \u00abUncategorized\u00bb","block_context":{"text":"Uncategorized","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/category\/uncategorized-es\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"P.M-165432","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/p-m-165432.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":155,"url":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/mujer\/invisible-women\/?lang=en","url_meta":{"origin":5996,"position":2},"title":"Invisible Women","author":"EntreMundos","date":"5 marzo, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"By Patricia Mac\u00edas Lopez \u00a0 In Guatemala, 660 women were killed just last year, 112 more than in 2012, a frightening reality that is lived with on a daily basis. But violence against women is not only concentrated in numbers like these; rather, it occurs in many different ways and\u2026","rel":"","context":"En \u00abMujer\u00bb","block_context":{"text":"Mujer","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/category\/mujer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/mujeres-2.png?fit=1000%2C825&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/mujeres-2.png?fit=1000%2C825&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/mujeres-2.png?fit=1000%2C825&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/mujeres-2.png?fit=1000%2C825&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7988,"url":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/politics\/seven-years-after-the-sentence-we-continue-remembering-yes-there-was-genocide\/?lang=en","url_meta":{"origin":5996,"position":3},"title":"Seven Years After The Sentence We Continue Remembering: Yes, There Was Genocide!","author":"EntreMundos","date":"9 diciembre, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"In September 2015 the United Nations decided to declare December 9th International Day of Commemoration and Dignity for Victims of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime. 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