Tasha Haight

Professor Carey
Crime and Punishment in Latin America
February 3, 2015
Jelin Memo
Memories are key to the past. No one is still living from hundreds or thousands of
years ago; it is through memories that history is passed down from generation to generation.
Memories are what keeps history alive. Elizabeth Jelin, author of State Repression and the
Labors of Memory, believes memories are subjective objects of dispute, conflicts, and
struggles that need to be worked through and looked at historically. She rightfully believes
they are attached to a past that changes over time and should not be acted out. By using
examples of changed memories due to the militia in the Southern Cone, Jelin provides
evidence to the claims made about memories throughout her book, such as the theme that
memories, and therefore the past, change over time.
She brings up the idea of memory entrepreneurs, or individuals who try to establish
their memory as the predominant memory (Jelin 33). I found it extremely interesting that
these people are not necessarily elites, as usually it is the victors, military, scholars, and
artists, along with the survivors and relatives of survivors, which try to create the historical
memory of an event. This then brings up the times of the military regimes within Argentina,
Brazil, and Chile, as human rights movements also get involved to fight for the publicly
accepted memory of the time.
This struggle for power over certain memories is not just restricted to memories of the
past, but of memories of the present as well. As I do my service learning with the Asylee
Women Enterprise, I get a secondhand understanding of this on a more personal level than
simply reading the text. Four women are from Latin America and striving to gain asylum in
the United States from governments and situations so dangerous I cannot even begin to
imagine. Their lives are in danger for things that people take pride in here being part of a
certain political party or religion, for example. People where they come from are being
kidnapped, killed, or worse. A dozen other women are from other parts of the world
Africa, Afghanistan, and others but are going through similar situations. With this text, I
cant help but picture the struggle for power the memories and events of these womens lives
will eventually have when new governments take over the current governments in their home
countries. Will they step forward as survivors, like Mench did in Guatemala? If they do,
will someone like Stoll come along and try to invalidate their claims?
The memory power struggle will always be a persistent issue in all cultures,
circumstances, and times of the past, present, or even future. With the always changing
histories and memories, one cannot be certain what actually happened, but nevertheless, it is
important to bring out all the memories of the time so one may consider all possibilities in
hopes of discovering the truth.