Monday, August 21, 2023

Adios, for now…It’s hard to find words to describe the magic and the marvelousness that was my 6 weeks in La Plata, Argentina.

For me, it was a time filled with happiness, joy, curiosity and real deep emotional connections.

Put simply, I have fallen head over heels in love with Argentina: the culture, the people, the history, and the dulce de leche. Even now, as I reminisce in writing about my days there, I am drinking a nice hot mate.

It has been about a week after my return to the Unites States, and it is now abundantly clear that the mark Argentina has made on me isn’t going away – though the Argentine snacks I brought back certainly are.

Here is what I’m bringing home with me:

1. The pure joy and happiness that radiates through the streets, the plazas, and the social gatherings of Argentina.

• The greeting beso – and perhaps more generally the warm, enthusiastic, and open attitude applied equally to meeting new people or old friends.

• The Dulce de Leche. Obviously.

• Cuarteto: Especially Rodrigo, whose soulful voice brings me right back to La Plata every time I hear it.

• The mate and the simple joy of sharing a hot drink with friends.

• The deep and beautiful friendship I made with my host mother/sister/friend Valentina.

• And most importantly, the fierce and passionate commitment to public memory and social rights.

I am bringing back so many memories, so many revelations about living a happier life, but also a newfound understanding of how history affects our contemporary social rights and political issues. Before I arrived in Argentina, I knew very little of the country’s complex political and social history. I didn’t understand the severity of la dictadura. I’d never been taught the atrocities that have spanned the country’s history, with and without the protection of a fragile democracy. I didn’t even know about the thousands of families left incomplete and broken in the aftermath of so much economic, political, and social chaos in the 20th century.

It was only in researching and writing the story of Clarisa Adriana García Delorenzini de Cassino’s life, that I fully understood this complex chapter of history. Clarisa’s life, Clarisa’s story, Clarisa’s disappearance, all of which I discovered in La Plata, came together to teach me the sordid history of her homeland. It was, perhaps, the interviews that I conducted with Clarisa’s family and friends that most significantly opened my eyes to the story of la dictadura in Argentina. I first spoke to Viviana Balbi, a college roommate and friend of Clarisa. And then a few days later, I interviewed Julio (and his wife Myriam) and Clarisita García, Clarisa’s younger brother and niece respectively. These interviews were unlike any project I’ve ever conducted: intensely emotional, touching, and very illuminating. Through these testimonies, Clarisa García was brought to life before my eyes, and I am eternally grateful to the four wonderful people who opened themselves up to me. Their vulnerability and their commitment to remembering Clarisa made my project – and the personal intellectual growth that I gained from it – possible.

In the end, after six weeks of in-depth research, interviews, site visits, and a little bit of arts and crafts, I finally completed a biography of Clarisa Adriana García Delorenzini de Cassino. Filled with photographs, quotes from Clarisa’s close friends and family, and a comprehensive look into her personality and life, the project is something that I am immensely proud of. The reason? Because it’s a product that matters. It isn’t just a piece of writing that proves a thesis, or an assignment completed and forgotten. This biography is a
gift — at least according to my intentions for it. A gift to Clarisa’s family, friends, community,
and really to Clarisa herself. It’s also a history lesson. A lesson for the visitors who will pass
through Pergamino’s Comisaría 1a, where the physical biography will be kept. It’s a microhistory that illuminates a dark and scary part of the country’s past, while also
highlighting the importance of democracy and activism today. This biography that I’ve
written is also a part of me now. Clarisa, and her story, will always have a place in my heart
and mind. She will exist there as a reminder to me, a hopeful historian in the making, of why
the subject of history matters. And how to do it justice.

Below is an excerpt from the last page of the biography both in the original Spanish and translated by me into English. I feel that it sums up neatly (if that’s possible) what this internship experience has taught me and is also the section of which I am most proud:

Recordamos a Clarisa “con amor, porque así fue…siempre recibió lo que dió.” Recordamos a “Clarisa alegre, Clarisa cantando [y] Clarisa llena de vida.” Recordamos a Clarisa como “una persona que impactó, con su corta vida, impactó la sociedad e impactó y marcó a determinada gente.” Recordamos a una Clarisa profundamente querida. Y de esta manera, el odio pierde.

Clarisa es una de 30.000 personas desaparecidas. Pero para su familia, sus amigos, sus maestros y sus compañeros Clarisa era un rayo de sol, una fuente de alegría y una parte irremplazable en sus vidas. Para ellos su vida es más que la tragedia que la terminó. Su vida era alegría. Música. Amor. Cariño. Existen 30.000 Clarisas. Existen 30.000 familias
dejadas incompletas. Existen 30.000 vidas hermosas que tenemos que recordar por su belleza además de su sufrimiento. Con esta, la historia de la vida profunda y hermosa de Clarisa García Cassino, nos acercamos a este sueño.

We remember Clarisa “with love, because that’s how it was…she always got what she gave.” We remember “Clarisa happy, Clarisa singing [and] Clarisa full of life.” We remember Clairsa as “a person that mattered, with her short life, she impacted her community and impacted and marked the lives of many specific people.” We remember a Clarisa deeply loved. And in this way, hatred loses.

Clarisa is one of 30,000 disappeared people. But for her family, her friends, her teachers, and her classmates Clarisa was a ray of sunshine, a source of happiness, and an irreplicable part of their lives. For them her life is more than the tragedy that ended it. Her life was happiness. Music. Love. Kindness. There are 30,000 Clarisas. There are 30,000 families left incomplete. There are 30,000 beautiful lives that we must remember for their beauty along with their suffering. That’s the ultimate goal; and with this, the story of the deep and beautiful life of Clarisa García Cassino, we come closer to it.

Thank you to all those who have followed along with this life-altering journey of mine. I hope my writing has at least partially expressed the pure beauty and magic that is Argentina – as well as the vital importance of my beloved major, history. I can’t wait to share a mate with you soon.

Un abrazo re fuerte, Charlotte