Before We Become Argentina: A Call to American Grandmothers

A Grandmother's Response and Resistance

The country is Argentina.

The year is 1977.
She is risking her life, standing alone in the plaza holding a photo of her daughter.
Her daughter, who is pregnant and ‘disappeared’ under an authoritarian military regime that is terrorizing its citizens and holding them captive.
Her voice is quiet.
But it will change the world.

Your initial response may be to think that this mother’s story can be dismissed as happening in a far-away country that has nothing to do with America.

But this mother’s story, and thousands of other women like her, are screaming at us here in America to pay attention.

Because what happened in Argentina is happening in America.

And while the images may show those who have been labeled “illegals” in our country (many of whom are not only not criminals as the media wants to assert, they are legal U.S. citizens protected by our Constitution), soon–very soon–natural born citizens will be arrested, detained…

disappeared.

The Lesson We Must Learn From Argentina

Between 10,000 and 30,000 people were forcibly disappeared by the Argentine military regime from 1976 to 1983. Abducted, tortured, and killed without trial or accountability, these were people who courageously stood up against the authoritarian rule. The government targeted students, activists, artists, and perceived dissidents in a campaign of systematic repression and fear, under the guise of national security.

The dictatorship operated through clandestine detention centers, where people were tortured, and then most were murdered. Families were rarely informed of their fate. Many victims were thrown into the sea from the infamous death flights. Amnesty laws passed after the dictatorship was overthrown protected perpetrators for decades, leaving a deep wound in Argentina’s collective psyche.

The Mothers and Grandmothers Risked Their Lives for Their Children

Groups like the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo led the fight for truth, marching every week for decades, demanding justice for their disappeared children. They began marching in 1977 and became potent symbols of resistance and human rights advocacy. Soon after, Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo) emerged, focusing on locating their stolen grandchildren, babies born to women who were abducted and killed, and then illegally adopted or given to military families.

Pause here and consider the courage of these women. In the middle of one of the deadliest regimes that ruthlessly tortured and murdered its citizens, women boldly stood up. They demanded accountability and justice for their children and grandchildren.

Women, armed with nothing but their conviction to do what was humane and compassionate, looked death in the face and said, “No more. Not here. Not while I am alive will the memory of my children or grandchildren be erased from history.”

Women, who now reach up to us here in 2025 and say, “Pay attention to the lessons history teaches you. To ignore them will lead to an outcome equally horrific and undeniably cruel.”

It is time for American women to heed the call, proclaim the warning loudly, and become a part of the collective uprising before America becomes the next Argentina.

Reject the Lie that Christian Patriarchy Told You was Truth

I will be the first to admit that fear threatens to isolate and paralyze me as we witness rights being stripped away, truth being distorted, and cruelty being normalized. I, too, am tired and often feel a sense of foreboding that it is too late for change.

But this is the lie that Christian patriarchy wants us to believe. This fear, the one that silences us, that tells us to wait, that whispers it’s too late, is not accidental. It has been taught, reinforced, and sanctified. This is the fruit of Christian patriarchy, and this is why we must name it. Christian patriarchy influences our churches, our government, and our homes. It raised generations of women to believe that submission is sacred, that obedience is virtue, and that questioning power is rebellion against God. It taught us to doubt our instincts, suppress our anger, and spiritualize our suffering by preaching our glory would be in heaven. We were conditioned to see endurance as righteousness, silence as strength, and male authority as divinely ordained.

Let’s be very clear here: Christian patriarchal indoctrination does not mean we are a Christian nation. It means we are a nation that has been taught to normalize white Christian men colonizing land for their benefit, appropriating customs and traditions of the Indigenous people, and normalizing the narrative that white Christian men must lead for our country to be safe and God-ordained.

This has never been about what is God-ordained. It has always been about control.

So of course we feel paralyzed.
So of course we’re exhausted.
But recognizing the source of that conditioning is the first crack in its power.
And now, we reject it.
We name it.
And we rise against it, because it is at the root of the authoritarianism rising in America..

Grandmothers Who Voted for Trump

I’m going to hold your hand as I say this as gently as I can, without losing the urgency in this message–there is no time to wait for your regret. If you are doubling down on your vote for a man who represents the boiling rage of bigotry that is rooted in white supremacy, then I have nothing more to say to you. Watch and listen in your silence, where I hope you will learn something and begin to peel back the layers of indoctrination that compels you to believe that you are morally and spiritually superior to others who don’t look like, love like, believe like you, or who were not born in a country that you feel is deserving of the rights you so freely bestow on, for example, white immigrants from South Africa.

You are the one drawing the proverbial line in the sand and are more at home in your hatred of others than envisioning a world where your life is not harmed in any way if we ensure those forced to the margins due to colonization and bigotry enjoy life and are extended equity.

But to the grandmothers who once voted for Trump and now feel something stirring in the quiet hours of the night—this is for you.

You may not say it out loud, but somewhere deep within, you know this is not the way. Hatred in our hearts cannot build a compassionate world. You were told it was about strength, about God, about protecting what matters.

But now? The fruit of that tree is bitter. You feel it when you see the fear in your transgender grandchild’s eyes. You witness it when your immigrant neighbors no longer stop to say ‘good morning’ because they are not sure you are one they can trust (and for good reason). You hear it in the cruelty shouted from pulpits and podiums.

You know this isn’t right. And still, it isn’t too late to turn back toward love.

Remember the call of matriarchy deep within your bones, tucked into generational memory, the grandmothers weeping, the ones who never were able to hold a child lost to a war or genocide.

This Calling is for All Who Feel the Call to Mother the Earth and its Inhabitants

This collective rising is not just for mothers and grandmothers, but for every woman. Whether she has borne children or not, whether she walks freely in her truth or still hides parts of herself for safety, whether she was born in the body that fits or has had to fight for her right to exist at all.

Whether the call to mother and nurture extends to the care of animals and nature. Whether the feminine nouns feel foreign, and they find strength in ‘they/them.’ We shall not tolerate mockery of humanity in this moment.

We have long surpassed the gatekeeping of normative standards, and we demand a world where humans are not confined to the societal mold Christian patriarchy envisions. My god–it is why we are in this nightmare we find ourselves in right now.

As a grandmother who fears that if we don’t act quickly, I may leave this earth not knowing how the story ends, I implore you to heed this warning.

Patriarchy has suffocated the call of the matriarch.
Matriarchy–where compassion, empathy and kindness are front and center.

We do not need permission to rise.
We are not weak.
We are not done.
We are the ones who know that silence in the face of injustice is its own form of violence.
We are the ones who led the March on Versailles in 1789, demanding bread for our starving families and accountability from a corrupt monarchy. We carried the pitchforks along with our babies and proved that hunger and injustice fuel a revolution.
We were instrumental in the Russian revolution, protesting and advocating for change, igniting a movement that toppled an empire.

We rose because our survival—and our children’s future—demanded it.

We are the grandmothers of this generation.
We carry memory.
We carry fire.
And now, we rise.
The past demands it, to protect the future.

Let us be the ones who showed up when it mattered most.

Let our rising be the memory our descendants whisper with gratitude.

May our future actions grow from this moment, rooted in truth, nourished by courage, and carried by love.