As I was doing Ms. Quinet's homework assignment, I came across some really interesting stuff. All of the events Marquez references in his speech still have lasting effects; however, the incident about the women of Argentina giving birth in prison stood out to me. Note that most people in prison at this time were there solely because they spoke against the dictatorship. I came across this article and video that I think are both really informative. The article basically talks about how after Argentina gets rid of dictatorship in 1983, women across the country come together in a group called the "Plaza de Mayo" to search for their lost children (the ones they had given birth to in prison). However, most of these women are actually the grandmothers of the children, considering that while in jail, the women "were allowed to give birth in prison - only to be murdered a few days later." The babies had then been given to military families, and now the "Plaza de Mayo" group is attempting to locate these children and reunite them with relatives. The article and video provide a lot more information, so if you're interested, here's the link. (It was written in 2013, so the lasting effects of this whole situation are really evident)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-22004491
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I too found this interesting when I was doing Mrs. Quinet's homework assignment! I thought that Plaza de Mayo can also be tied to One Hundred years of Solitude, because there are many children who are "illegitimate" and taken away from their mothers or given away. A phrase that struck me in the article posted was, "The authorities believed that if the children were brought up with the "right" kind of political thinking they could be purged of the left-wing, subversive inclinations of their parents" (Sue Lloyd-Roberts). The taking of the children was to suppress any further thought against the government at that time and place. It seems, to me, that in the book the children are either given away to the Buendía family because they either need to be hidden, like Aureliano, as to subvert any type of negative thinking toward the family, or be brought up, like Aureliano José, because he was born by a mistress of the night (Pilar Ternera). Of course this analogy is a stretch, but Plaza de Mayo got me thinking about the children who were not raised by their birth parents in the novel, One Hundred years of Solitude.
I also looked into Plaza De Mayo a little deeper. I also think it is interesting however that Johnston talks about this event in his paper. When he mentions the incident it's a reminder that everything bad in Marquez's "story" actually happened and is still in effect. When we read 100 years, we think of it like a fairytale kind of, we don't think that the terrors could actually happen to real people. But this DID happen to real people and things like this still happen. Johnston says, "We might observe that what takes place in the pages of Marquez's 'magical realism' is in many places not so far from the cruel fantasies of killing and forgetfulness still, for example, pictures on the front pages of the Globe and Mail." (pg 8) What Marquez wrote about wasn't far fetched at all, he wrote history, its just hard for us all to accept that.
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