From Accounting to Recounting: Esther Chávez Cano and the Articulation of Advocacy, Agency, and Justice on the US-Mexico Border

Abstract

Esther Chávez Cano was trained as an accountant in Mexico City, where she worked in executive positions for national and international corporations.⁴ In 1982 she moved to Juárez to take care of an elderly aunt.⁵ It was not until 1985, when she could not adjust to her new life in Ciudad Juárez, that she shifted gears and discovered her real vocation in an ad in El Diario,⁶ which stated, very simply, “solicita-ban reporteros a quienes se les impartiría un curso de periodismo”—the paper was looking for reporters they could include in a course in journalism.⁷ She could not predict then that a few years later the impulse to write would turn her into an international leader⁸ against violence toward women and children in Ciudad Juárez, and, more specifically, against the femicide in the city.

There is no such thing as a private intellectual, since the moment you set down words and then publish them you have entered the public world.

Edward Said, 1993¹

When one is propagating truths deeply radical and desperately unpalatable one cannot expect an eager and convinced audience.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1897²

Nuestra obligación es luchar para que desaparezca el crimen, la corrupción y la impunidad y son las autoridades las que deben dar respuesta inmediata a nuestras inquietudes. (Our responsibility is to fight to make crime, corruption, and impunity disappear, and it is the authorities who should provide an immediate response to our concerns.)

Esther Chávez Cano, 1991³