NY: Compañeras: Zapatista Women's Stories, Book Party at MRNY

Book Party

Compañeras: Zapatista Women's Stories

Monday, February 23rd at 7pm

MRNY's Bushwick office - 301 Grove St. Brooklyn, NY 11237

Please join us for a book party to celebrate the release of Compañeras: Zapatista Women's Stories, written by Make the Road New York's own Hilary Klein.

Compañeras is the untold story of women's involvement in the Zapatista movement. In 1994, the Zapatistas captured the world's attention with its brief armed uprising, demanding political, economic, and social equality for the indigenous population of Chiapas, Mexico -- a population which had been marginalized for more than five hundred years and devastated by globalization.

Prior to 1994, the indigenous women of Chiapas were often forced into arranged marriages and confined to the private sphere; they had little access to birth control, and domestic violence was widespread. But gender roles were radically redefined in the context of the Zapatista movement, as women became guerilla insurgents and political leaders, healers and educators, and leaders of economic cooperatives.

Gathered in Compañeras are the stories of grandmothers, mothers, and daughters who worked collectively to construct a new society of dignity and justice.

"This commanding chronicle of the lives of the Zapatista compañeras," said Elaine Brown, Black Panther Party leader and author of A Taste of Power, "provides a guiding light for a new generation of feminists and others who would challenge patriarchy, poverty, gender oppression, racism and all the other inhumanities maintained by global capitalism."

Javier H. Valdés, Co-Executive Director of MRNY, will introduce the event. He said, "The Zapatista movement captures the essence that, as we build collective power to achieve social justice, we make the road by walking. Compañeras contains many valuable lessons for those of us in the immigrants' rights movement in this country and is a must-read for all organizers and movement-builders."

Author Hilary Klein will read from Compañeras, and will be joined by MRNY organizer Nieves Padilla to discuss the many lessons that can be learned from these women's stories of struggle and courage.

This event will be bilingual (English/Spanish) and there will be food and music! Please join us on Monday February 23, at 7pm. Click here to RSVP.