I asked my friend Hillary Estner to do this patch because she wanted to be a part of the process and we had learned about this topic together in a class about women’s resistance in Latin America.
La cueca is the national dance of Chile and is typically performed by a man and a woman. During Pinochet’s rule in Chile, however, a folkloric group formed (with many of the same women who were involved in making arpilleras) that reconceptualized la cueca in a powerful and challenging way. Because many of their husbands were missing, women would go to public places and dance la cueca – alone. They would carry scarves and wear photographs of their husbands on their chests as they danced.
I love the extraordinary political boldness of la cueca sola as well as the courage to express such incredible pain. Hillary’s patch expresses this and shows both the centrality of the individual woman and the importance of others watching, or witnessing, her act.