I told them that without my son I would not be able to survive; that I would die. I was crazy, sick, distraught. I would cry all day in the streets. Middle-class women banging pots in opposition to the Pinochet regime. pitals, the mprgue, the psychiatric hospital, the International Red Cross, the different detention centers, and I went to all the jails in the area. At that time, the Association had at their disposal a bus to help in the search for detained relatives. Thanks to the [Catholic] Vicariate of Solidarity, we were able to speak to other political prisoners to see if they had seen my son. That is how I came to know that my son had been detained at Villa Grimaldi [one of Pinochet's most infamous detention and torture centers]. Six people declared before a judge that they had seen him there, that he was fine and had not been tortured. But one night they made him say goodbye to his friends because he was going to be freed, and from that moment on nothing more has been known to this day. I ask myself, where do they have him? In what secret prison? I think they must have him working someLas Arpilleristas Rojas and Bone during their visit to the Northwest. where because he is so intelligent. The women of the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared organized ourselves and we began to carry out different types of activities in order to make our situation known. I participated in a hunger strike with the goal of pressuring the government to find out where our loved ones were being held. For 17 days [in June 1978], I had nothing but water and salt. The first week I felt fine, but after the eighth day I became weaker and. kept getting worse. Finally I was forced to accept intravenous feeding in order to survive, even though I didn’t want it. I was given the last rites. [Officials of the government promised to tell the truth if the hunger strike stopped, because they were told some of the women were seriously ill and if they died, it would be their responsibility. But to this day they have said nothing.] I also participated in an event where we chained ourselves to the gates of the Ministry of Justice, and as a result I spent five days in the Correctional Prison. All of those who participated were arrested. The nuns at the Correctional Prison told us, “That is what you get for getting mixed up in politics.” In 1975, I began to make arpilleras. I made them based on my problem and my anguish. It was a way of alleviating my pain because we were able to convey our experience and at the same time we could denounce what had happened to us. I would think back on moments of happiness when my son was still here, and I would think of the moments of solitude when he was taken away, and I would translate all of this into images in the arpilleras. I felt happy when I showed the arpilleras to other people because they found them moving and beautiful and they understood what I felt. Later, we also began to denounce other problems, not just our problems, but also unemployment, the findings of secretly buried corpses in Lpnquen, conditions in the’ shantytowns, the outdoor soup kitchens, the closing of factories, children who had to beg, so that the world outside could see how we live here. We have to be concerned about other people’s problems, what other people experience and feel, and we also put that in our arpilleras. With other arpillera makers we discussed our problems, and we taught ourselves. There were other women who were there before I arrived and they were stronger and they helped me overcome the crisis of that first moment. Now I suffer, but I know how to compose myself; I have companeras with whom to converse and feel that we share the same pain. I am now living off my retirement pension which comes to about 5,000 pesos [$50] per month and from my work with arpilleras, which adds up to another 1,000 pesos [$10] or so. I manage with very little but I’m always looking for things to do because when my son was de-‘ tained I was left without anything. I even had to sell my TV. • From the time my son was born I had him at my side until he was taken away from me. Today he would be 40 years old. I have the hope that my son will return and I will see him again. I think they’re keeping him somewhere and that he is alive. I never want to think that they killed him. I think to myself, why didn’t they sentence him to 15 or 20 years in prison so I could visit him. Often, when I am asleep I hear a voice saying to me, “Mami, Mami,” and I say, “God bless you my little son, may God take care of you and accompany you." • Margaret Thomas is director of the Portland office of the Council for Human Rights in Latin America. 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