Kirsten Walther, '12

The Complexity of Memory

     Although I have studied Spanish during my entire time at Holy Cross, because I was unable to study abroad my junior year, I have always felt that my Spanish education was lacking an important "immersion" experience in a Spanish-speaking country. While I regularly speak and hear Spanish in a classroom, I had never before been completely immersed in the language. In fact, before this year, I had never been to a Spanish-speaking country. Therefore, although I was extremely excited to travel to Argentina for a week, I had no idea what to expect in terms of both language and culture. Because I am not a native speaker, I was a bit apprehensive as to how my communication skills would fare in Argentina. Listening to classroom Spanish is very different from Spanish spoken in the real world, and from this trip I have gained an appreciation of the importance of immersing oneself in a foreign language as the only way to truly learn it. In fact, this trip has inspired me, if I am accepted, to spend next year in Spain teaching English through the Auxiliares de conversación program. The trip opened my eyes to the importance of not simply being able to "speak" Spanish, but rather the ability to actually converse effectively and clearly in Spanish. I have gained a newfound motivation to study the language, not just in the context of an academic setting, but in an all-encompassing Spanish-speaking environment.

     The tour was not only valuable to my Spanish language skills in general; it offered me a much clearer context in which to view the films which we have seen in class. The tour of ESMA, for example, was at once both informative and haunting. The grounds of ESMA were absolutely beautiful; to me, the area could have passed for a botanical garden. During the tour, our guide explained to us that the facility used to actually hold sporting events while there were prisoners trapped inside the basement, with egg cartons lining the walls to mute their screams. I found this horrifying, but it made me realize the importance of talking about what happened during the Guerra sucia in Argentina. It was not a "civil war" like in the 1860s United States; there was a clear and absolute divide between the "battlegrounds" and the idyllic life of the wealthy, those protected by the government. The government waged war not only to stop the spread of counter-ideas, but to actually remove these people from memory. I appreciated that no one had tried to reconstruct the interior of the buildings of ESMA to resemble how they looked in the 70s. The Centro clandestino de detención was almost completely bare inside, save for the plaques which described the crimes which had been committed in the center. In class, we have seen dramatic representations of what happened in these centers, but to actually enter the buildings and to read the words of survivors is a much different experience. I felt as if I could evaluate Argentina's war on, not simply an emotional level, but an intellectual one as well.

     We saw several different perspectives of how Argentines today address the government's crimes of the past: the madres de la plaza, the students who worked at Parque de la memoria, and Liliana Lukin's mention of "el arte del olvido." The word "memoria" was present in several of the titles; Argentines are both concerned with improving the future of their country and with how they treat memories from the past. Present-day activists fight not only human rights abuses, but that their fellow countrymen will never forget the abuses of the past. This trip showed me the complexity of the topic of memory regarding events that countries would undoubtedly rather sweep away. Olimpo and ESMA do not in any way attempt to recreate their former appearance as a CCD. Rather than trying to model the buildings from 40 years ago, they simply serve as empty shells in which people can come, reflect, and read plaques containing brief yet moving first-hand accounts of how survivors described the buildings. The centers offer a place of meditation and thought, rather than "museums" full of artifacts.

     Now that I am back in the United States, and fully re-immersed in my school work and thoughts of graduating, my final meditation on my experience in Buenos Aires comes from the Parque de la memoria, where a statue read "Pensar es un hecho revolucionario." Although, in the context of the museum, the piece of art carried clear political and anti-dictatorship meaning, I believe that it is an important mantra for people worldwide. I really appreciated the political knowledge and involvement of the Argentines to whom we spoke, and it has inspired me to learn more about both my own government and the world itself.