Sandino's Daughters Revisited: Feminism in Nicaragua

by Margaret Randall

Sandino's Daughters , Margaret Randall's conversations with Nicaraguan women in their struggle against the dictator Somoza in 1979, brought the lives of a group of extraordinary female revolutionaries to the American and world public. The book remains a landmark. Now, a decade later, Randall returns to interview many of the same women and others. In Sandino's Daughters Revisited , they speak of their lives during and since the Sandinista administration, the ways in which the revolution made them strong  — and also held them back. Ironically, the 1990 defeat of the Sandinistas at the ballot box has given Sandinista women greater freedom to express their feelings and ideas. Randall interviewed these outspoken women from all walks of working-class Diana Espinoza, head bookkeeper of a employee-owned factory; Daisy Zamora, a vice minister of culture under the Sandinistas; and Vidaluz Meneses, daughter of a Somozan official, who ties her revolutionary ideals to her Catholicism. The voices of these women, along with nine others, lead us to recognize both the failed promises and continuing attraction of the Sandinista movement for women. This is a moving account of the relationship between feminism and revolution as it is expressed in the daily lives of Nicaraguan women.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

311 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1994

About the author

Margaret Randall is a feminist poet, writer, photographer and social activist. She has lived for extended periods in Albuquerque, New York, Seville, Mexico City, Havana, and Managua. Shorter stays in Peru and North Vietnam were also formative. In the turbulent 1960s she co-founded and co-edited EL CORNO EMPLUMADO / THE PLUMED HORN, a bilingual literary journal which for eight years published some of the most dynamic and meaningful writing of an era. From 1984 through 1994 she taught at a number of U.S. universities.

Margaret was privileged to live among New York’s abstract expressionists in the 1950s and early ’60s, participate in the Mexican student movement of 1968, share important years of the Cuban revolution (1969-1980), the first four years of Nicaragua’s Sandinista project (1980-1984), and visit North Vietnam during the heroic last months of the U.S. American war in that country (1974). Her four children—Gregory, Sarah, Ximena and Ana—have given her ten grandchildren: Lia, Martin, Daniel, Richi, Sebastian, Juan, Luis Rodrigo, Mariana, Eli, and Tolo. She has lived with her life companion, the painter and teacher Barbara Byers, for almost a quarter century.

Reviews

[jac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great collection of interviews. A large number of the women are related to people in Somoza's dictatorship, which was interesting. Felt there was a bit too much focus on women in high positions of power, as compared to Cuban women now. But overall great book.

[Janet Holt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5
Read for WSGS 201

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

i remember this to be a really powerful collection of oral histories/interviews with several women who had leadership positions in the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua and its subsequent government of the 1980s. the women here are candid about the revolutionary government's gendered power dynamics. or rather, how the women's feminist ideals had to be put on the back burner because there were more pressing matters for the new government to deal with. pressing matters like the US govt's illegally funded covert operation to aggressively undermine the Sandinista govt.

but at it's center, this book gives voice to the women's individual and varied experiences, including their own work as artists, activists, officials, and health care workers who were both impassioned by new possibilities and frustrated by their govt's hypocrisies. the significant common thread is their reflections on the ways they struggled to confront sexism within a govt that emerged through revolutionary values, and how these negotiations were further complicated by Nicaragua's inevitable resistance to the escalating aggression of the US.

for an analysis that will paint a much more substantial picture, go to this link: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev....

[Samantha Hastie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but each of the interviews follows the same pattern and so once you have read a few it gets a bit repetitive. Took me a long time to finish.