Published in 2015
384 pages
Hilary Klein spent six years in Chiapas, Mexico, working with women’s projects in Zapatista communities. After she compiled a book of Zapatista women’s testimony to be circulated in their own villages, women in the Zapatista leadership suggested that Hilary compile a similar book for an outside audience.
Hilary has been engaged in social justice and community organizing for twenty years. After spending five years at Make the Road New York, a membership organization that builds the power of immigrant and working-class communities, she joined the Center for Popular Democracy in May 2015. She is originally from Washington, DC, and received her BA in Political Science from UC Berkeley.
What is this book about?
Guerrilla insurgents. Political leaders. Promoters of health and education. Members of economic cooperatives. These are just some of the prominent, everyday roles held by women in the Zapatista autonomous region in Chiapas, where women’s participation has proved indispensable to the creation and maintenance of an alternative, democratic society.
Compañeras is the untold story of the women of the Zapatista movement, gathered by longtime community organizer Hilary Klein. The Zapatista women’s own recollections of their lives, struggles, and critical involvement bring to light the tremendous transformation of gender roles that has occurred in this culture of revolution, and are instructive for everyone committed to examining how existing grassroots alternatives to global capitalism can guide the way toward justice, equality, and democracy.
