On October 6th, 1978, the Argentine junta kidnapped Patricia Roisinblit. She was a young medical student and activist, and she was eight-months pregnant. After she was abducted, she gave birth to her son, and was never heard from again. Journalist Haley Cohen Gilliland wrote a book about the intrepid grandmothers who took great risk to fight to find their missing daughters and grandchildren in the face of the brutal dictatorship that destroyed all records of these political disappearances. She joins host Ali Muldrow to talk about A Flower Traveled In My Blood and discuss the lessons we can still learn from these unrelenting women.

Cohen Gilliland learned about the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo while working in Argentina. At the time there was only one book in English on the subject. Human rights groups estimate about 30,000 people were disappeared, and Cohen Gilliland says that it’s a testament to the success of the military government in disappearing people and covering it up that we don’t have concrete numbers. She describes her reporting process and the importance of narrative nonfiction in communicating dark moments in history with honesty and humanity. 

Despite the real risk to their lives, the abuelas–women without money, power, or a platform–recognized that they could successfully stand up to a brutal dictatorship and demand truth and demand their stolen grandchildren. They rewrote international law and pioneered genetic testing to do so. But they didn’t all find happy reunions with their grandchildren who had been raised in military and police families. 

Cohen Gilliland also reflects on how this dark time in Argentine history is a warning for the US today. As unidentified ICE officers abduct people off the streets and Trump orders the military takeover of Washington D.C., there are reasons we should be alarmed at the authoritarian erosion of civil liberties. 

Haley Cohen Gilliland is a journalist and the director of the Yale Journalism Initiative. She previously worked at The Economist for seven years, four of which were spent in Buenos Aires as the paper’s Argentina correspondent. Following her time at The Economist, she has focused on narrative nonfiction—bringing history and current events to life through fact-based storytelling. She has published long-form feature articles in The New York Times, National Geographic, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Vanity Fair, among other publications.

Featured image of the cover of A Flower Traveled In My Blood.

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