Neris Gonzáles was 17 in 1979 when she realized the peasants in her
El Salvador community were being exploited. She began working with a priest,
and in a month had the workers reading, writing and realizing they were being
underpaid and overcharged. She didn’t know that the army persecuted Catholics
that taught the peasants. Gonzalez told a hushed CTA audience that when she
was eight months pregnant, she was captured and tortured for two weeks. Forced
to watch the torture of others, she was then dumped in a field where she thought
she would die. She survived, but then faced the 1980 murder of Archbishop Romero
and a 12-year “low intensity” war funded by the Reagan and Bush
administrations. Its aftermath was “total ecological destruction of the
land.” She became an environmental activist and started a project for
organic farming.
Gonzales finally came to Chicago in 1996 for torture treatment and was granted
political asylum. She learned that two Salvadoran generals who were responsible
for her torture were living in Florida. She filed a civil suit against them.
At first, fearing for the lives of family members still in El Salvador, she
asked her mother for advice. Her mother told her, “You have to stand up
for justice.” She then agreed. At trial's end she and another victim were
awarded $54 million. They have yet to collect a single dollar. She is now working
to deport these generals from the U.S.
Gonzales is a profile in courage. She is also a model of ecological sanity for
the 21st century, even in Chicago. She works with the public school system teaching
young children recycling and composting.
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