Guardianas: Dispatches from the Association of Midwives Rosa Andrade / Despachos de la Asociación de Parteras Rosa Andrade

A collection of testimonies from midwives in El Salvador who delivered babies during the twelve-year-long civil war and today fight to protect their ancestral role to care for the reproductive health of their communities.

This bilingual edition includes thirty color photographs and five black-and-white illustrations.

“An inspiring testament to the indispensable role of midwives in safeguarding life, culture, and community even against formidable odds.” —Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body

“In this book we get to listen to elders, warriors, guides whose love, care and support for the autonomy of people giving birth models the world we deserve.” —Alexis Pauline Gumbs, author of Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde

“A book we need to read, as across the world we face a relentless war against the main conditions of our reproduction.” —Silvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch and Wages Against Housework

During the twelve-year-long Salvadoran civil war, mothers and guerrilla fighters attended births out of necessity. While fleeing airstrikes, in caves and beneath mango trees, with no electricity or running water, these women became parteras—community midwives—and began to care for pregnant people in rural areas and refugee camps who could not access medical care. In 1994, in the wake of the armed struggle, the Association of Midwives Rosa Andrade (APRA) was born.

Compiled from oral histories gathered in 2019 by Salvadoran American birth worker Noemí Delgado, this bilingual anthology weaves together testimonies from twenty members of APRA to tell a collective story of midwifery and community care in revolutionary El Salvador. In Guardianas, the beauty of the testimonies, and the care with which they were collected, come together to safeguard a vision of a world rooted in fierce bravery, dignity, and ancestral wisdom.

//

Durante los doce años de guerra civil en El Salvador, madres y guerrilleras asistieron a parturientas. Mientras se refugiaban de ataques aéreos, dentro de cuevas y bajo árboles de mango, sin electricidad o agua corriente, estas mujeres vueltas parteras comenzaron a cuidar a personas embarazadas en áreas rurales y campos de refugiados que no podían acceder a cuidado médicos. En 1994, tras la lucha armada, nació la Asociación de Parteras Rosa Andrade (APRA).

Compilado de historias orales recolectadas en 2019 por la trabajadora de partos salvadoreña-estadounidense Noemí Delgado, esta antología bilingüe entreteje testimonios de veinte miembros de la APRA para relatar un cuento colectivo de partería y cuidado comunal en El Salvador revolucionario. En Guardianas, la belleza de los testimonios, y el cuidado con el que fueron recolectados, juntos resguardan una visión del mundo enraizado en coraje feroz, dignidad y conocimiento ancestral.

Founded in 1994, the ASSOCIATION OF MIDWIVES ROSA ANDRADE (APRA) is a group of thirty midwives caring for the reproductive health of thousands of people living in thirty-five rural communities in the municipality of Suchitoto, Cuscatlán, El Salvador. Most of the members of APRA either began or continued the work of attending births during the twelve-year-long civil war from 1979 to 1992, when pregnant people in rural areas and guerrilla and refugee camps could not seek medical attention due to the extreme terror inflicted by the US-backed military dictatorship. Rooted in solidarity and a commitment to their communities, the members of APRA continue to care for pregnant, birthing, and postpartum families today. The current members of APRA include: María Melia Martínez Flamenco, Bonifica Ascencio García, María Amalia Molina Menjivar, Fredelinda Antonia Recinos de Cerón, Vicenta Martínez, Ángela Luz Barahona de Ávalos, Cecilia de María Rivera de López, Francisca Catalina Blanco Hernández, Ana Teresa Ávalos, María Higinia “Patricia” Hernández, Tomasa Jovita Torres, Natividad Escobar de Henriquez, Lucía Rutilia González, María Martina Lucero, María Dolores Hernández de Rivera, Vilma Coreas Guzmán, Reina Marlenis Escobar Figueroa, María de los Ángeles Acosta Ardón, Sandra Maricela Flores, María Magdalena Rodas Arias, Dolores Margarita Marroquín de Hernández, Estela Villacorta Rivas, Angélica de la Paz Martínez León, Morena Elí Orellana Menjivar, Sonia Alicia Cruz Montoya, Yessenia de Jesús Canjura Trejo, Pedrina Ángela Calderón, María Antonia Landaverde, Emilia Marinet Sánchez, and Marina Martínez.
Residence: Suchitoto, El Salvador.

NOEMÍ DELGADO is a birth worker, body worker, and childbirth educator. Born in California, she began her birthwork journey while living and working with midwives in her family’s homeland of El Salvador. She accompanied the Association of Midwives Rosa Andrade during a Public Health Fulbright Fellowship in 2019. She is codirector of Matronas: The Struggle to Protect Birth in El Salvador (2021), which was an Official Selection at the San Diego Latino Film Festival and the Oakland Short Film Festival and was nominated for Best Short Documentary at the fifteenth Annual BronzeLens Film Festival. Delgado is dedicated to uplifting ancestral wisdom and challenging the systems that attempt to erase it; Guardianas and Matronas are a part of that effort.
Residence: San Francisco, CA.

EMMA LLOYD is a translator and writer working across genres—from poetry to narrative to film subtitles. Her ongoing translation of Pedro Lemebel’s De perlas y cicatrices (Of Pearls and Scars) won a 2019 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant. She is the translator of Julieta Vittore Dutto’s debut poetry collection, Un lugar interminable (An Endless Place) (2022), as well as subtitles for Tatiana Huezo’s Prayers for the Stolen (2021) and Mattis Appelqvist Dalton and Matteo Robert Morales’s The Time of the Fireflies (2022). She has a master’s from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York and is currently pursuing a PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Alongside her translation work, Emma works at Safe Passage Project, an immigration justice organization.
Residence: Berkeley, CA.

LUZ DEL CARMEN SALAMA-TOBAR is a Salvadoran artist, photographer, and organizer. Born in Sonsonate, El Salvador, land of the Náhuat-Pipil people, and raised in Falls Church, Virginia, after immigrating to the US, her work centers around her community. She received her BFA in Photography at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2018 and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 2019, during which time she taught as a visiting scholar at the University Don Bosco in San Salvador and began work with Kuna Nawat, an early immersion language program taught by the last native speakers of the Náhuat language. She is cofounder of the Virginia-based abolitionist organization La ColectiVA and is currently pursuing her masters in photography at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts.
Residence: Washington, D.C.