Imprisonment

Mónica Baltodano, born in 1954, began her activism with the Sandinistas as a student and continued her efforts through underground mobilization, surviving imprisonment and torture. She was awarded the title of Commander Guerrilla for her service, and has held a number of political offices including Vice Minister of the Presidency and Minister of Regional Affairs. Upon leaving the FSLN in 2005, Ms. Baltodano helped to found the Movement to Reclaim Sandinismo (known as El Rescate).
Keywords: education, gender-based violence, imprisonment, politics and the law
Media: Transcripts (English, Spanish), Video (English, Spanish), Bibliography, English YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Vina Mazumdar (1927-2013) was a professor and past fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, serving on the Committee on the Status of Women in India and later directing the Programme of Women's Studies at the Indian Council of Social Science Research. She founded the Centre for Women's Development Studies and became its Chairperson. The GFP staff note with sadness the death of Vina in 2013. To learn more about her contribution to women's movement in India, read her public obituary written in The Hindu Paper.
Keywords: feminist conferences, academia and women's studies, rural women and land reform, politics and the law
Media: Transcript (English), YouTube Video, Video, Bibliography, Name Pronunciation Audio

Andrea Lee Smith, born in 1966, is an activist/educator. She served as a delegate to the United Nations World Conference Against Racism in Durbin (1991), representing the Indigenous Women's Network and the American Indian Law Alliance. She is one of the founding members of Incite! Women of Color Against Violence, and is the co-founder of the Chicago chapter of Women of All Red Nations (WARN). She has organized several conferences, including the Color of Violence I & II Conferences, Race, Gender and the War Community Forum, and Decolonizing Methodology and Beyond: Constructive Proposals for Indigenous Methodologies.

In the period since this interview, significant doubt has been cast on Dr. Smith's assertion of a Native American or Woman of Color identity. We have retained her interview in this collection of oral histories because her interview was part of the original archive, and because we believe that scholars can and should study what she said in the interview in the context of subsequent conversations (see the articles below, including an open letter from Indigenous women, for more context).
Articles