Margarita Drago, author of Memory Tracks: Fragments from Prison (1975-1980) recounts her experiences as a seventh-grade teacher in Argentina who was a political prisoner for five years after she was arrested in 1975 as part of the military junta’s national campaign to eliminate all signs of dissent. Her memoir offers a moving chronicle of resistance to oppression in Argentina during the US-backed Perón administration. Without detailing the specifics of abuse, rape, or torture, Drago nevertheless provides the reader with enough information to understand the horror of being a political prisoner. At the same time, however, she keeps the reader focused on the encouragement, compassion, hope, and love the prisoners show to each other. As part of this support system, she and some of her fellow prisoners began and maintained a clandestine newspaper from within their prison cells. In relating her first-hand experiences of the invincibility of the human spirit in the most degrading situations, Drago brings to light the qualities of courage and strength in unity, hope in spite of virtually insurmountable obstacles, and victory over repression, terrorism, and abuse.

Margarita Drago has lived in the United States since 1980. As an ex-political prisoner, she has represented Argentina in congresses in the United States, Mexico, Peru and France. She has published articles in newspapers and literary, educational, and human rights magazines. Drago has worked in education since 1986, and is now a professor of Spanish language and literature and of bilingual education of York College of the City University of New York, where she has worked since 1995. She is currently vice-president of the Latino Artists Round Table (LART), a nonprofit cultural organization that was founded in 1999.

Margarita Drago’s presentation will be Friday evening of the conference.

Visit Margarita Drago's CUNY web page.