WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.779 Imagine for a moment you're standing in a bustling 00:00:02.779 --> 00:00:06.679 market in Santiago, Chile. The air smells like, 00:00:06.700 --> 00:00:09.119 you know, roasted nuts and city dust. Right. 00:00:09.320 --> 00:00:11.400 You reach into your pocket to pay for something, 00:00:11.560 --> 00:00:14.519 a souvenir maybe, and you pull out a 5 ,000 peso 00:00:14.519 --> 00:00:17.420 banknote. Okay. Now, most of us, when we handle 00:00:17.420 --> 00:00:19.500 money, we don't really look at it. It's just 00:00:19.500 --> 00:00:22.399 a tool. But if you stop and you actually stare 00:00:22.399 --> 00:00:25.550 at the face on that bill, you see a woman. It's 00:00:25.550 --> 00:00:28.329 a very specific image, isn't it? She looks incredibly 00:00:28.329 --> 00:00:31.890 calm, maybe a bit stern, even. Totally. She has 00:00:31.890 --> 00:00:34.390 this high collar. Her hair is pulled back, severe 00:00:34.390 --> 00:00:36.850 and tight. It is the perfect image of the mother 00:00:36.850 --> 00:00:39.710 of the nation. Exactly. The quintessential, you 00:00:39.710 --> 00:00:41.869 know, saintly school teacher. That's the word. 00:00:42.380 --> 00:00:44.560 When you look at her, you think, strict but loving? 00:00:44.780 --> 00:00:47.299 You imagine her teaching the alphabet to a room 00:00:47.299 --> 00:00:49.719 full of six -year -olds? Or maybe knitting a 00:00:49.719 --> 00:00:52.299 sweater in a rocking chair by the fire, dispensing 00:00:52.299 --> 00:00:54.539 some kind of gentle, non -threatening wisdom. 00:00:54.960 --> 00:00:58.060 Yes, it just evokes this sense of order, of, 00:00:58.159 --> 00:01:00.759 I don't know, submission to tradition. And that 00:01:00.759 --> 00:01:03.439 is the official version. That is absolutely the 00:01:03.439 --> 00:01:05.659 curated image that has been sold to the public 00:01:05.659 --> 00:01:08.659 for decades. It suggests this woman was safe. 00:01:08.840 --> 00:01:11.280 She was domestic. She was harmless. Harmless. 00:01:11.319 --> 00:01:13.079 That's the key. But here's the thing. And this 00:01:13.079 --> 00:01:14.980 is exactly why we're doing this deep dive today. 00:01:15.760 --> 00:01:21.060 That image. It's a mask. It's a massive, almost 00:01:21.060 --> 00:01:24.480 intentional fabrication or at least a criminal. 00:01:26.069 --> 00:01:28.010 oversimplification of who this woman actually 00:01:28.010 --> 00:01:31.689 was. Oh, completely. Because this gentle school 00:01:31.689 --> 00:01:34.430 teacher, Gabriela Mistral, wasn't just some local 00:01:34.430 --> 00:01:36.870 educator who wrote a few sweet rhymes. She was 00:01:36.870 --> 00:01:39.170 an absolute powerhouse. Powerhouse is almost 00:01:39.170 --> 00:01:40.870 an understatement. I mean, just to put this in 00:01:40.870 --> 00:01:42.629 perspective right out of the gate so we all understand 00:01:42.629 --> 00:01:44.760 the stakes here. Go for it. Cabriolet Mistral 00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:47.439 was the first Latin American author to win the 00:01:47.439 --> 00:01:49.959 Nobel Prize in literature. And I want to be really 00:01:49.959 --> 00:01:52.040 clear for everyone listening. Right. We are not 00:01:52.040 --> 00:01:54.319 just talking about the first woman. No, no. The 00:01:54.319 --> 00:01:58.340 first person. Period. She won the Nobel in 1945. 00:01:58.920 --> 00:02:00.819 Think about that timeline for a second. It's 00:02:00.819 --> 00:02:03.180 way earlier than you'd think. It's years before 00:02:03.180 --> 00:02:06.540 Pablo Neruda, before Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 00:02:06.739 --> 00:02:09.719 before Mario Vargas Llosa, before all the giants 00:02:09.719 --> 00:02:11.620 of the Latin American boom that people usually 00:02:11.620 --> 00:02:13.800 associate with that region's literature. She 00:02:13.800 --> 00:02:15.599 beat the guys to the bunch. And she did it by 00:02:15.599 --> 00:02:18.120 a pretty significant margin. That is a massive 00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:21.060 moment. I mean, she's the foundational figure, 00:02:21.180 --> 00:02:23.800 the matriarch of this whole literary movement. 00:02:24.139 --> 00:02:28.960 She is. But despite that, history and specifically 00:02:28.960 --> 00:02:32.060 later political regimes in Chile sort of flattened 00:02:32.060 --> 00:02:34.879 her out. They took this complex, jagged, brilliant 00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:38.159 woman and just turned her into a saintly statue. 00:02:38.719 --> 00:02:41.280 Which is so ironic because when you actually 00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:44.139 dig into the source material, you know, the biographies, 00:02:44.139 --> 00:02:46.360 the literary analysis, the private letters that 00:02:46.360 --> 00:02:47.900 have surfaced. Oh, the letters. We'll get to 00:02:47.900 --> 00:02:50.199 those. You find someone who was completely self 00:02:50.199 --> 00:02:53.319 -taught, who was. fiercely radical in her politics, 00:02:53.500 --> 00:02:57.159 and who lived a private life that was, well, 00:02:57.259 --> 00:02:59.800 let's just say it was far more debated and controversial 00:02:59.800 --> 00:03:01.860 than the history books admitted for a very long 00:03:01.860 --> 00:03:04.379 time. So that is our mission today. We are going 00:03:04.379 --> 00:03:07.020 to peel Gabriella Mistral right off that banknote. 00:03:07.139 --> 00:03:09.500 We're going to look at the poverty -stricken 00:03:09.500 --> 00:03:12.240 childhood that shaped her, the meteoric rise 00:03:12.240 --> 00:03:15.020 she managed without a university degree, and 00:03:15.020 --> 00:03:17.840 the tragedies, both romantic and familial, that 00:03:17.840 --> 00:03:20.150 fueled her poetry. And we have a lot of ground 00:03:20.150 --> 00:03:22.189 to cover. We're looking at biographical data, 00:03:22.289 --> 00:03:24.930 deep dives into her works like Desolation and 00:03:24.930 --> 00:03:27.750 Tala. And we really have to put this all against 00:03:27.750 --> 00:03:30.349 the backdrop of Chilean history. Right. From 00:03:30.349 --> 00:03:34.210 the rigid class systems of the late 19th century 00:03:34.210 --> 00:03:36.610 all the way up to the Cold War. And the central 00:03:36.610 --> 00:03:38.449 theme we're going to keep coming back to is this 00:03:38.449 --> 00:03:42.009 tension, right? The public symbol of order versus 00:03:42.009 --> 00:03:44.669 the private reality of a radical thinker. A woman 00:03:44.669 --> 00:03:47.370 who wrote about mad women who championed indigenous 00:03:47.370 --> 00:03:49.909 roots when it really wasn't cool to do so and 00:03:49.909 --> 00:03:52.909 who processed this just earth shattering grief 00:03:52.909 --> 00:03:55.210 in her work. So let's unpack this. Let's start 00:03:55.210 --> 00:03:57.330 at the very beginning. Who was she before she 00:03:57.330 --> 00:04:01.590 became Gabriela Mistra? OK, so she was born Lucila 00:04:01.590 --> 00:04:05.740 Godoy Alcayaga in 1889. And if you are picturing 00:04:05.740 --> 00:04:07.860 a privileged upbringing that leads to a Nobel 00:04:07.860 --> 00:04:10.900 Prize, you know, a nice library, tutors, a comfortable 00:04:10.900 --> 00:04:13.159 estate. Erase that image. Erase it immediately. 00:04:13.599 --> 00:04:16.420 She was born in Vicuña, Chile, but she grew up 00:04:16.420 --> 00:04:19.199 in a tiny village called Monte Grande. Paint 00:04:19.199 --> 00:04:21.569 a picture of Monte Grande for us. Yeah. Because 00:04:21.569 --> 00:04:24.129 geography often shapes destiny, right? For sure. 00:04:24.329 --> 00:04:27.269 Monte Grande is in the Elky Valley. It's an Andean 00:04:27.269 --> 00:04:29.889 village, so it's rural, it's rugged, and back 00:04:29.889 --> 00:04:31.649 at the turn of the century, it was seriously 00:04:31.649 --> 00:04:34.149 isolated. What's it like there? It's a place 00:04:34.149 --> 00:04:37.170 of intense sun, sharp mountains, and very dry 00:04:37.170 --> 00:04:40.480 earth. It's beautiful. in a harsh kind of way, 00:04:40.639 --> 00:04:43.079 but it is a hard place to live if you don't have 00:04:43.079 --> 00:04:45.839 resources. And her family situation, did she 00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:48.000 have those resources? Absolutely not. Her family 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:51.040 situation was defined by instability. Her father, 00:04:51.259 --> 00:04:53.720 Juan Geronimo Godoy Villanueva, was actually 00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:55.639 a schoolteacher himself. Oh, that's interesting. 00:04:55.839 --> 00:04:58.379 Yeah, but he was known to be a bit of a wanderer, 00:04:58.379 --> 00:05:01.220 maybe a bit of a poet at heart, but he just wasn't 00:05:01.220 --> 00:05:03.160 a reliable presence. I see where this is going. 00:05:03.339 --> 00:05:05.579 The reality for Lucila was that he deserted the 00:05:05.579 --> 00:05:07.860 family when she was only three years old. Three, 00:05:07.920 --> 00:05:12.089 wow. That is a pivotal trauma right there. Abandonment 00:05:12.089 --> 00:05:15.290 at age three. That has to leave a mark. A huge 00:05:15.290 --> 00:05:17.689 one. He essentially vanished from her daily life. 00:05:17.870 --> 00:05:20.569 He eventually died, alone and estranged, years 00:05:20.569 --> 00:05:24.189 later in 1911. So for her childhood, his absence 00:05:24.189 --> 00:05:27.230 meant what? It meant immediate grinding poverty. 00:05:27.589 --> 00:05:30.569 Her mother, Petranila, was a seamstress. They 00:05:30.569 --> 00:05:33.250 were constantly moving, just scraping by, trying 00:05:33.250 --> 00:05:36.069 to make ends meet. Poverty wasn't just a circumstance 00:05:36.069 --> 00:05:38.610 for her. It was the atmosphere she breathed. 00:05:38.829 --> 00:05:41.029 And this poverty directly affected her education, 00:05:41.290 --> 00:05:43.430 right? Which is so ironic given she's known to 00:05:43.430 --> 00:05:45.350 the world as this great educator. It completely 00:05:45.350 --> 00:05:47.709 derailed her formal schooling. Because they moved 00:05:47.709 --> 00:05:49.629 so much and because they always needed money, 00:05:49.790 --> 00:05:52.589 she couldn't attend school regularly. Her formal 00:05:52.589 --> 00:05:55.050 education technically ended around the year 1900. 00:05:55.509 --> 00:05:57.610 Wait, hold on. Let me do the math here. Born 00:05:57.610 --> 00:06:00.649 in 1889. So her formal schooling ended when she 00:06:00.649 --> 00:06:03.069 was 11 or 12 years old. That's correct. She barely 00:06:03.069 --> 00:06:05.829 finished primary school. That is just mind -blowing. 00:06:05.970 --> 00:06:08.370 Yeah. So the woman who would become the educator 00:06:08.370 --> 00:06:11.149 of the Americas, who would lecture at universities 00:06:11.149 --> 00:06:13.889 around the world, technically had an elementary 00:06:13.889 --> 00:06:16.430 school education. Yep. How does she bridge that 00:06:16.430 --> 00:06:18.470 gap? How is that even possible? Well, she had 00:06:18.470 --> 00:06:21.170 a secret weapon, her older sister, Emilina Molina. 00:06:21.449 --> 00:06:23.529 OK. Emilino was a teacher and she was really 00:06:23.529 --> 00:06:26.029 Lucila's first instructor. She gave her the basics. 00:06:26.310 --> 00:06:29.970 But beyond that, Lucila had this voracious, just 00:06:29.970 --> 00:06:33.250 undeniable intellectual drive. She read everything 00:06:33.250 --> 00:06:35.430 she could get her hands on. She was an autodidact. 00:06:35.490 --> 00:06:39.250 A pure autodidact. By the age of 15, she wasn't 00:06:39.250 --> 00:06:41.810 just studying. She was working. She became a 00:06:41.810 --> 00:06:43.970 teacher's aide in a little seaside town called 00:06:43.970 --> 00:06:46.889 Campania Baja to support her mother. So at 15, 00:06:47.009 --> 00:06:49.050 she's basically the breadwinner working in a 00:06:49.050 --> 00:06:50.990 classroom trying to keep food on the table. But 00:06:50.990 --> 00:06:53.089 she wants to be a real teacher, right? She wants 00:06:53.089 --> 00:06:56.009 the credential. She does. She wants to be legitimate 00:06:56.009 --> 00:06:58.189 in the eyes of the state. And this is where we 00:06:58.189 --> 00:07:01.149 hit the first major roadblock in her life. It's 00:07:01.149 --> 00:07:03.329 a moment that really exposes the class dynamics 00:07:03.329 --> 00:07:07.310 and the religious rigidity of Chile at the time. 00:07:07.370 --> 00:07:10.029 What happens? In 1907, she applies to the Normal 00:07:10.029 --> 00:07:12.170 School. The Normal School, that's the teacher 00:07:12.170 --> 00:07:14.509 training college. Exactly. It's a gatekeeper 00:07:14.509 --> 00:07:16.949 institution. You go there, you get your degree. 00:07:17.449 --> 00:07:20.009 You're set for life as a professional. She applies, 00:07:20.050 --> 00:07:23.350 and she is rejected. On what grounds? Was she 00:07:23.350 --> 00:07:25.850 not smart enough? Did she fail an exam or something? 00:07:26.009 --> 00:07:27.829 Oh, she was brilliant. That was not the issue. 00:07:27.949 --> 00:07:30.470 The rejection was widely attributed to the school 00:07:30.470 --> 00:07:33.449 chaplain, a man named Father Ignacio Munizaga. 00:07:33.730 --> 00:07:36.949 He essentially vetoed her admission. A chaplain 00:07:36.949 --> 00:07:39.670 is blocking an academic admission. What did he 00:07:39.670 --> 00:07:42.870 have against a teenage girl? It wasn't her grades. 00:07:42.889 --> 00:07:46.009 It was her voice. Even as a teenager, Lucila 00:07:46.009 --> 00:07:48.310 had started publishing articles in local newspapers, 00:07:48.730 --> 00:07:51.370 papers like El Coquimbo and La Voz de Elqui. 00:07:51.449 --> 00:07:53.569 And she wasn't writing about, what, flowers and 00:07:53.569 --> 00:07:55.649 sunsets? No, she was writing about educational 00:07:55.649 --> 00:07:58.149 reform. She was advocating for better access 00:07:58.149 --> 00:08:00.829 to schools for the poor, for different social 00:08:00.829 --> 00:08:03.290 classes. She was questioning the status quo. 00:08:03.550 --> 00:08:05.769 So she was an activist from the jump. She really 00:08:05.769 --> 00:08:08.589 was. And the chaplain saw these writings. He 00:08:08.589 --> 00:08:11.850 labeled them pagan or socially disruptive. Essentially, 00:08:11.949 --> 00:08:14.410 she was walking the boat. He thought her ideas 00:08:14.410 --> 00:08:16.930 were dangerous for a young woman to have and 00:08:16.930 --> 00:08:19.430 certainly dangerous for a future teacher to hold. 00:08:19.649 --> 00:08:23.569 That is fascinating. So in 1907, Chile, being 00:08:23.569 --> 00:08:25.750 a teenage girl advocating for social equality 00:08:25.750 --> 00:08:28.769 gets you blacklisted from higher education. Bring 00:08:28.769 --> 00:08:30.670 them up. She was effectively canceled by the 00:08:30.670 --> 00:08:33.110 church before her career even started? In a manner 00:08:33.110 --> 00:08:35.549 of speaking, yes. She was pushing for change 00:08:35.549 --> 00:08:39.330 in a very rigid, class -stratified society. The 00:08:39.330 --> 00:08:41.570 gatekeepers just slammed the door in her face. 00:08:41.690 --> 00:08:44.350 But here's the irony. And it speaks to her sheer 00:08:44.350 --> 00:08:46.649 force of will, her resilience. She didn't stop. 00:08:46.850 --> 00:08:49.129 She did not stop. Most people would have given 00:08:49.129 --> 00:08:50.830 up. They would have said, OK, the system says 00:08:50.830 --> 00:08:52.929 no. I guess I'll just be a seamstress like my 00:08:52.929 --> 00:08:55.610 mom. Right. But she realized there was a loophole. 00:08:56.009 --> 00:08:59.250 Chile is a long, geographically difficult country. 00:08:59.350 --> 00:09:01.929 There was a massive shortage of teachers, especially 00:09:01.929 --> 00:09:04.690 in the rural areas, the hard places. So if you 00:09:04.690 --> 00:09:06.370 were willing to go where the fancy university 00:09:06.370 --> 00:09:08.649 trained teachers wouldn't go. You could get a 00:09:08.649 --> 00:09:11.110 job. Exactly. It's the classic I'll do the dirty 00:09:11.110 --> 00:09:13.870 work strategy. So she entered the school of hard 00:09:13.870 --> 00:09:16.740 knocks. She taught in La Serena, in Barrancas, 00:09:16.879 --> 00:09:20.779 in Treguen, in Antofagasta. She moved all over 00:09:20.779 --> 00:09:24.360 the map of Chile, often to these very difficult, 00:09:24.500 --> 00:09:26.799 isolated environments. She's in the trenches. 00:09:27.039 --> 00:09:29.960 She is. Learning how to teach by actually doing 00:09:29.960 --> 00:09:33.320 it, often with very few resources. And she eventually 00:09:33.320 --> 00:09:36.159 proved herself so undeniably competent, so brilliant 00:09:36.159 --> 00:09:38.480 in the classroom, that the system just had to 00:09:38.480 --> 00:09:40.919 accept her. She forced their hand. And how did 00:09:40.919 --> 00:09:43.549 she do that? In 1918, she was appointed director 00:09:43.549 --> 00:09:46.350 of the Sarah Braun Lyceum in Punta Arenas. Punta 00:09:46.350 --> 00:09:49.289 Arenas. That's the end of the world. That's as 00:09:49.289 --> 00:09:51.149 south as you can go before you hit Antarctica. 00:09:51.429 --> 00:09:54.710 It is deeply isolated, but she ran it. And then 00:09:54.710 --> 00:09:58.620 the ultimate vindication. In 1921, she beat out 00:09:58.620 --> 00:10:00.740 university -trained candidates, people with the 00:10:00.740 --> 00:10:03.139 pedigree she was denied, to become the director 00:10:03.139 --> 00:10:05.919 of Liceo No. 6 in Santiago. The capital. The 00:10:05.919 --> 00:10:07.879 capital. And not just any school. It was the 00:10:07.879 --> 00:10:10.279 country's newest, most prestigious girls' school. 00:10:10.500 --> 00:10:13.700 That is a massive flex. She goes from being rejected 00:10:13.700 --> 00:10:16.299 by the training college to running the most prestigious 00:10:16.299 --> 00:10:18.700 school in the system. I imagine that ruffled 00:10:18.700 --> 00:10:21.259 some feathers. Ruffled is putting it mildly. 00:10:21.299 --> 00:10:24.559 It created intense resentment. The political 00:10:24.559 --> 00:10:27.299 establishment, the academic elites, the teachers 00:10:27.299 --> 00:10:30.980 unions. They saw this self -taught woman from 00:10:30.980 --> 00:10:34.220 the villages with no degree taking the top spot. 00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:36.759 They hated it. Oh, they hated it. They felt she 00:10:36.759 --> 00:10:39.419 hadn't earned it in the traditional way. It challenges 00:10:39.419 --> 00:10:41.779 their whole worldview. It says, you don't need 00:10:41.779 --> 00:10:44.679 our institution to be great. And institutions 00:10:44.679 --> 00:10:47.509 hate that. Precisely. But while she is fighting 00:10:47.509 --> 00:10:50.049 all these battles in the education system, justifying 00:10:50.049 --> 00:10:52.590 her existence every single day, she is quietly 00:10:52.590 --> 00:10:55.330 building this other identity. Okay. And this 00:10:55.330 --> 00:10:57.190 brings us to the birth of Gabrielle Amistral, 00:10:57.269 --> 00:10:59.690 because up until now, she's still Lucila Godoy. 00:10:59.830 --> 00:11:02.350 Right. So when does the name change happen and 00:11:02.350 --> 00:11:04.769 why? Was she just trying to be mysterious or 00:11:04.769 --> 00:11:07.330 was it a branding thing? It was much more practical 00:11:07.330 --> 00:11:10.769 and, frankly, protective. Remember the chaplain. 00:11:10.830 --> 00:11:13.070 Remember the rejection. One who blocked her because 00:11:13.070 --> 00:11:15.190 of her writing. she never forgot that lesson 00:11:15.190 --> 00:11:18.549 she knew that if she published her poetry which 00:11:18.549 --> 00:11:21.169 was becoming increasingly raw emotional and dark 00:11:21.169 --> 00:11:24.990 she risked losing her teaching job teachers were 00:11:24.990 --> 00:11:27.629 expected to be these conservative morally upright 00:11:27.629 --> 00:11:32.019 almost sexless figures her poetry was Well, it 00:11:32.019 --> 00:11:33.960 was human. It was full of passion and doubt. 00:11:34.279 --> 00:11:37.100 So she needed a mask. A firewall between the 00:11:37.100 --> 00:11:39.460 director and the poet. Exactly. So she started 00:11:39.460 --> 00:11:42.019 publishing under Gabriella Mistral. Where did 00:11:42.019 --> 00:11:44.799 that name come from? It sounds very strong, very 00:11:44.799 --> 00:11:47.259 elemental. There are two main theories, and both 00:11:47.259 --> 00:11:49.120 of them tell us something about her. The first 00:11:49.120 --> 00:11:52.159 is that it's a literary tribute. She loved the 00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:55.179 Italian poet Gabriele di Nunzio. and the French 00:11:55.179 --> 00:11:58.039 poet Frédéric Mistral. Who was a Nobel winner 00:11:58.039 --> 00:12:00.379 himself, by the way. He was. So she's aligning 00:12:00.379 --> 00:12:02.379 herself with the greats from the start. She's 00:12:02.379 --> 00:12:04.960 naming herself after greatness, manifesting it. 00:12:05.039 --> 00:12:06.860 I like that. What's the other theory? The other 00:12:06.860 --> 00:12:09.559 one, which I find quite poetic and maybe more 00:12:09.559 --> 00:12:12.639 fitting, is that it's a combination of the archangel 00:12:12.639 --> 00:12:14.720 Gabriel, the messenger of God, and the Mistral, 00:12:14.820 --> 00:12:18.460 which is this fierce, dry, strong wind that blows 00:12:18.460 --> 00:12:21.039 through Provence in France. The angel and the 00:12:21.039 --> 00:12:24.629 wind. I like that. It captures that dual nature, 00:12:24.750 --> 00:12:27.970 spiritual but powerful, maybe a little destructive. 00:12:28.250 --> 00:12:30.110 It fits her perfectly. She actually described 00:12:30.110 --> 00:12:32.789 herself as having a wind, nature strong, sometimes 00:12:32.789 --> 00:12:34.789 harsh, cleaning out the old to make way for the 00:12:34.789 --> 00:12:37.529 new. So let's talk about the poetry itself. You 00:12:37.529 --> 00:12:40.250 mentioned it was emotionally outspoken. What 00:12:40.250 --> 00:12:42.850 was she writing about that felt so risky for 00:12:42.850 --> 00:12:45.429 a schoolteacher? To understand the poetry, we 00:12:45.429 --> 00:12:47.889 have to look at the tragedy. Her life was just 00:12:47.889 --> 00:12:51.610 punctuated by profound loss. In 1906, when she 00:12:51.610 --> 00:12:54.710 was quite young, she met a railway worker named 00:12:54.710 --> 00:12:57.730 Romilio Irita. A railway worker. Again, she's 00:12:57.730 --> 00:12:59.690 not mingling with the elites. She's dating a 00:12:59.690 --> 00:13:01.950 guy with dirt under his fingernails. No, she's 00:13:01.950 --> 00:13:03.409 with the working class. They had a relationship. 00:13:03.809 --> 00:13:06.090 The details are sometimes debated, how serious 00:13:06.090 --> 00:13:08.429 it was, how long it lasted, but the ending is 00:13:08.429 --> 00:13:11.370 not. In 1909, Irita committed suicide. That's 00:13:11.370 --> 00:13:13.809 just devastating. It was a shock. And to make 00:13:13.809 --> 00:13:16.429 matters worse, she had a second love shortly 00:13:16.429 --> 00:13:18.860 after. who ended up marrying someone else. So, 00:13:18.919 --> 00:13:21.190 double heartbreak. And these heartbreaks were 00:13:21.190 --> 00:13:24.529 the catalyst. They fueled her first major literary 00:13:24.529 --> 00:13:28.450 breakthrough. Sonetos de la muerte, sonnets on 00:13:28.450 --> 00:13:31.190 death. Sonnets on death. That is definitely not 00:13:31.190 --> 00:13:33.509 the light, fluffy verse people might expect from 00:13:33.509 --> 00:13:36.230 a gentle schoolteacher. Not at all. These poems 00:13:36.230 --> 00:13:38.450 won the Juegos Florales, which was a national 00:13:38.450 --> 00:13:42.649 literary contest in Santiago in 1914. That victory 00:13:42.649 --> 00:13:45.429 is what launched her fame. But the content, I 00:13:45.429 --> 00:13:48.690 mean, it was about death, despair, and a very, 00:13:48.730 --> 00:13:51.100 very... complicated relationship with God. I 00:13:51.100 --> 00:13:53.240 want to deep dive on that relationship with God. 00:13:53.279 --> 00:13:55.159 She's often associated with Catholicism, right? 00:13:55.179 --> 00:13:57.360 She is, yeah. Later in life, she was a member 00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:00.080 of the secular Franciscan order. But her poetry 00:14:00.080 --> 00:14:03.220 is not standard pious Catholicism. It's not God 00:14:03.220 --> 00:14:05.159 is great, everything happens for a reason. It's 00:14:05.159 --> 00:14:08.019 more... wrestling with God. It's wrestling, it's 00:14:08.019 --> 00:14:10.240 resentment, it's shouting at the heavens. In 00:14:10.240 --> 00:14:13.200 her 1922 book, Desolation, which was actually 00:14:13.200 --> 00:14:15.000 published in New York because of her international 00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:19.080 reach, she explores this raw, almost angry grief. 00:14:19.480 --> 00:14:22.139 She questions why God would allow such suffering. 00:14:22.360 --> 00:14:25.120 She writes about the desire to die, to be reunited 00:14:25.120 --> 00:14:27.759 with the loved one, but also the fear of judgment. 00:14:28.080 --> 00:14:31.149 That is risky. Questioning God in a conservative 00:14:31.149 --> 00:14:33.789 Catholic country in the 1920s, that's a bold 00:14:33.789 --> 00:14:35.990 move. Very risky, but that's why the critics 00:14:35.990 --> 00:14:38.289 loved it. She was expanding what Latin American 00:14:38.289 --> 00:14:41.350 poetry could be. At the time, the dominant style 00:14:41.350 --> 00:14:44.070 was modernism, which was often very focused on 00:14:44.070 --> 00:14:47.529 aesthetics, beauty, form. Like painting with 00:14:47.529 --> 00:14:49.990 words. Yeah, almost decorative. She brought in 00:14:49.990 --> 00:14:52.669 this brutal, beautiful reality. She made poetry 00:14:52.669 --> 00:14:55.570 bleed. So Desolation covers themes of motherhood, 00:14:55.570 --> 00:14:59.399 religion, nature. But it's all anchored in this 00:14:59.399 --> 00:15:02.500 deep sorrow. Yes. And it solidified her international 00:15:02.500 --> 00:15:05.399 reputation. Suddenly, Lucilla, the school director, 00:15:05.559 --> 00:15:08.259 was Gabriella, the literary sensation. And ironically, 00:15:08.440 --> 00:15:10.080 as her fame grew abroad, Chile was starting to 00:15:10.080 --> 00:15:12.120 feel a little too small and a little too hostile 00:15:12.120 --> 00:15:14.059 for her. Because of the resentment from the other 00:15:14.059 --> 00:15:16.360 teachers, the establishment. That was a huge 00:15:16.360 --> 00:15:19.120 part of it. The atmosphere in Santiago was toxic 00:15:19.120 --> 00:15:21.600 for her. She felt unappreciated and attacked 00:15:21.600 --> 00:15:25.419 by the elite. And in 1922, just as desolation 00:15:25.419 --> 00:15:27.940 is hitting the shelves, she gets an escape hatch, 00:15:28.139 --> 00:15:31.559 an offer she can't refuse. What was the offer? 00:15:31.779 --> 00:15:34.320 Jose Vasconcelos, who is the minister of education 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:36.899 in Mexico, invites her to come and help build 00:15:36.899 --> 00:15:39.259 their national education system. Wait, wait. 00:15:39.460 --> 00:15:42.659 Another country asked her. the woman rejected 00:15:42.659 --> 00:15:44.860 by her own country's teacher training college, 00:15:45.039 --> 00:15:47.779 to come build their entire school system. Yes, 00:15:47.799 --> 00:15:50.159 you can't make this up. Mexico had just gone 00:15:50.159 --> 00:15:52.419 through its revolution. It was a time of massive 00:15:52.419 --> 00:15:54.519 social reconstruction. They wanted to build schools 00:15:54.519 --> 00:15:57.720 for the people, libraries for the poor, education 00:15:57.720 --> 00:16:00.059 for the indigenous population. And they wanted 00:16:00.059 --> 00:16:02.840 her specific expertise in rural education. They 00:16:02.840 --> 00:16:05.139 saw her value when Chile didn't. They wanted 00:16:05.139 --> 00:16:07.559 the woman from the trenches. That is a huge deal. 00:16:07.740 --> 00:16:10.500 It's a complete validation of her School of Hard 00:16:10.500 --> 00:16:13.000 Knocks approach. She basically gets headhunted 00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:15.779 by a nation. It is. She goes to Mexico and plays 00:16:15.779 --> 00:16:18.139 a pivotal role. She travels all over the country. 00:16:18.279 --> 00:16:20.799 She helps reform libraries. She found schools. 00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:23.879 And she publishes this famous anthology called 00:16:23.879 --> 00:16:26.940 Lecturas para Mujeres, Readings for Women. And 00:16:26.940 --> 00:16:29.350 what was that about? It was all about celebrating 00:16:29.350 --> 00:16:32.289 and uplifting girls' education, giving them role 00:16:32.289 --> 00:16:35.149 models, giving them serious literature to read. 00:16:35.389 --> 00:16:37.549 So she goes from being the rejected student to 00:16:37.549 --> 00:16:40.309 the architect of education in Mexico. It really 00:16:40.309 --> 00:16:42.549 is the moment she becomes known as the educator 00:16:42.549 --> 00:16:45.629 of the Americas. And it's also where we see another 00:16:45.629 --> 00:16:48.529 paradox in her life emerge. We need to talk about 00:16:48.529 --> 00:16:50.769 the poet of motherhood label. Right. This is 00:16:50.769 --> 00:16:52.549 the part of the myth that is most persistent, 00:16:52.710 --> 00:16:55.710 the mother of the nation. But she never had biological 00:16:55.710 --> 00:16:59.159 children, did she? She did not. Yet in 1924, 00:16:59.279 --> 00:17:01.500 she published a collection called Ternoda, or 00:17:01.500 --> 00:17:04.799 Tenderness, and it's full of lullabies, rounds, 00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:07.940 songs for children. It's much softer than Desolation. 00:17:08.099 --> 00:17:11.119 Lullaby is written by a childless woman. That's 00:17:11.119 --> 00:17:13.200 an interesting contradiction right there. Exactly. 00:17:13.460 --> 00:17:16.660 And this really solidified her image as the universal 00:17:16.660 --> 00:17:19.779 mother figure, but her view on children was fierce, 00:17:19.819 --> 00:17:22.940 not just sweet. There's a famous quote of hers, 00:17:23.079 --> 00:17:26.680 Su nombre es hoy. His name is today. I've heard 00:17:26.680 --> 00:17:29.319 this. It's about urgency, isn't it? It is, she 00:17:29.319 --> 00:17:31.759 wrote. We are guilty of many errors and many 00:17:31.759 --> 00:17:34.180 faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the 00:17:34.180 --> 00:17:36.859 children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many 00:17:36.859 --> 00:17:39.380 of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. 00:17:39.799 --> 00:17:42.259 Wow. Right now is the time his bones are being 00:17:42.259 --> 00:17:44.500 formed, his blood is being made, and his senses 00:17:44.500 --> 00:17:47.039 are being developed. To him, we cannot answer 00:17:47.039 --> 00:17:49.339 tomorrow. His name is today. That hits hard. 00:17:49.519 --> 00:17:52.359 His name is today. It's not a sentimental, oh, 00:17:52.440 --> 00:17:54.660 children are the future kind of statement. It's 00:17:54.660 --> 00:17:57.819 a... Children are dying of hunger right now statement. 00:17:58.440 --> 00:18:00.640 Precisely. It shows that her maternal focus wasn't 00:18:00.640 --> 00:18:02.640 biological. It was social. It was political. 00:18:02.859 --> 00:18:06.019 She felt this profound duty to the impoverished 00:18:06.019 --> 00:18:08.539 children of Latin America, the barefoot children 00:18:08.539 --> 00:18:10.619 she used to teach in the mountains. She was mothering 00:18:10.619 --> 00:18:13.380 a continent. So she finishes her time in Mexico. 00:18:13.420 --> 00:18:15.180 She has this massive international reputation 00:18:15.180 --> 00:18:17.480 now. Does she go back to Chile and settle down, 00:18:17.559 --> 00:18:21.660 take a victory lap? No. In fact, from 1926 onwards, 00:18:21.880 --> 00:18:24.200 she effectively lived in exile. She became a 00:18:24.200 --> 00:18:26.420 citizen of the world. She never really lived 00:18:26.420 --> 00:18:28.720 in Chile again for any extended period. Why not? 00:18:29.220 --> 00:18:31.920 Was she still resentful? Yeah. We're just too 00:18:31.920 --> 00:18:34.000 big for the room at that point. I think she felt 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:36.420 she could do more work and perhaps live more 00:18:36.420 --> 00:18:38.900 freely abroad. She worked for the League of Nations, 00:18:39.079 --> 00:18:41.619 which was a precursor to the UN. Right. And their 00:18:41.619 --> 00:18:43.579 Institute for Intellectual Cooperation. Exactly. 00:18:43.920 --> 00:18:46.259 And she started serving as a Chilean consul. 00:18:46.299 --> 00:18:49.740 A diplomat. A poet diplomat. It was a tradition 00:18:49.740 --> 00:18:52.579 in Latin America to give consular posts to famous 00:18:52.579 --> 00:18:55.039 writers to provide them with a steady income 00:18:55.039 --> 00:18:58.119 so they could write. But Ms. Strahl, she took 00:18:58.119 --> 00:19:00.099 the job seriously. She wasn't just collecting 00:19:00.099 --> 00:19:03.259 a check. She served in Naples, Madrid. Lisbon, 00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:06.099 Los Angeles, New York. I mean, she was everywhere. 00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:08.180 And speaking of poet diplomats, we have to talk 00:19:08.180 --> 00:19:10.660 about the connection with Pablo Neruda. You mentioned 00:19:10.660 --> 00:19:13.059 earlier she won the Nobel before him. Did they 00:19:13.059 --> 00:19:15.359 know each other? Oh, they did. And the story 00:19:15.359 --> 00:19:17.619 of how they met is almost too perfect for fiction. 00:19:17.759 --> 00:19:21.160 They met when Naruto was just a teenager. Mistral 00:19:21.160 --> 00:19:23.400 was the school director in his hometown, Tomoko. 00:19:23.720 --> 00:19:26.680 No way. So the future Nobel Prize winner is a 00:19:26.680 --> 00:19:29.359 teenager in a small town, and the principal of 00:19:29.359 --> 00:19:31.980 the local school is the other future Nobel Prize 00:19:31.980 --> 00:19:34.720 winner from his country. Exactly. Can you imagine? 00:19:34.859 --> 00:19:37.759 And she recognized his talent immediately. She 00:19:37.759 --> 00:19:40.279 was a mentor to him. She introduced him to Russian 00:19:40.279 --> 00:19:42.599 literature, gave him books, recommended readings. 00:19:43.180 --> 00:19:45.180 That's incredible. They had a lifelong friendship, 00:19:45.339 --> 00:19:47.819 though they were very different people. Later, 00:19:47.960 --> 00:19:49.960 they were actually fellow consuls in Madrid at 00:19:49.960 --> 00:19:51.980 the same time. What a coincidence of history. 00:19:52.119 --> 00:19:55.099 Two of the greatest literary minds of the 20th 00:19:55.099 --> 00:19:57.859 century just crossing paths in the rain in southern 00:19:57.859 --> 00:20:00.500 Chile. It really speaks to her eye for talent. 00:20:00.619 --> 00:20:02.880 But while she was traveling the world, rubbing 00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:05.920 shoulders with intellectuals, She never forgot 00:20:05.920 --> 00:20:09.359 her roots. In 1938, she published her second 00:20:09.359 --> 00:20:12.539 major volume of poetry, Tala. Tala. What does 00:20:12.539 --> 00:20:14.759 that mean? It translates roughly to harvesting 00:20:14.759 --> 00:20:17.940 or maybe ravage, like cutting down trees. It's 00:20:17.940 --> 00:20:19.859 a very significant book. She actually published 00:20:19.859 --> 00:20:22.460 it in Buenos Aires with the help of her friend, 00:20:22.579 --> 00:20:26.240 Victoria Ocampo. And she dedicated all the proceeds 00:20:26.240 --> 00:20:28.960 to children orphaned by the Spanish Civil War. 00:20:29.160 --> 00:20:31.480 Again, that focus on the vulnerable, on children. 00:20:31.950 --> 00:20:34.970 Always. But Tala is also where she really, really 00:20:34.970 --> 00:20:37.630 digs into her identity. She refers to herself 00:20:37.630 --> 00:20:42.250 as una mestiza de Vasco. A mestiza of Basque 00:20:42.250 --> 00:20:45.059 descent. Why is that significant? Because in 00:20:45.059 --> 00:20:48.180 the 1930s and 40s, the elite class in Chile and 00:20:48.180 --> 00:20:50.740 Latin America generally usually emphasized their 00:20:50.740 --> 00:20:53.039 European heritage. They wanted to be seen as 00:20:53.039 --> 00:20:56.259 white, as European, as sophisticated. Right. 00:20:56.440 --> 00:20:59.160 Mistral was openly acknowledging and celebrating 00:20:59.160 --> 00:21:01.720 her mixed heritage, her European Basque side 00:21:01.720 --> 00:21:05.210 and her indigenous Amundian side. She was reclaiming 00:21:05.210 --> 00:21:07.109 the indigenous side of her identity. She was. 00:21:07.170 --> 00:21:09.829 She wrote about the customs, the folklore, the 00:21:09.829 --> 00:21:12.130 land itself. She was grounding herself in the 00:21:12.130 --> 00:21:14.029 American continent. Even while living in Europe, 00:21:14.109 --> 00:21:17.230 she was saying, I am of this earth. It was a 00:21:17.230 --> 00:21:19.670 rejection of the elitism that had rejected her 00:21:19.670 --> 00:21:22.029 as a young girl. Okay, we have to move to a darker 00:21:22.029 --> 00:21:24.450 chapter now. We talked about the tragedy in her 00:21:24.450 --> 00:21:26.990 early life with her boyfriend's suicide. But 00:21:26.990 --> 00:21:29.410 there was a second tragedy much later that really 00:21:29.410 --> 00:21:31.950 broke her, wasn't there? Yes. This is perhaps 00:21:31.950 --> 00:21:34.109 the most painful part of her biography. We mentioned 00:21:34.109 --> 00:21:36.029 she didn't have biological children, but she 00:21:36.029 --> 00:21:38.690 had a nephew, Juan Miguel Godoy. And she raised 00:21:38.690 --> 00:21:41.549 him. She raised him as her own son. She called 00:21:41.549 --> 00:21:44.569 him Yin Yin. He was her world. He traveled with 00:21:44.569 --> 00:21:46.170 her, lived with her. He was the child she never 00:21:46.170 --> 00:21:48.789 had. So this was her son in every way that matters. 00:21:48.930 --> 00:21:51.970 Yes. But in 1943, when they were living in Petropolis, 00:21:52.130 --> 00:21:55.690 Brazil, tragedy struck. Yin Yin was just 17 years 00:21:55.690 --> 00:21:59.039 old and he committed suicide. Oh, my God. History 00:21:59.039 --> 00:22:01.839 repeating itself. First the lover, then the son. 00:22:01.940 --> 00:22:05.519 That is just unbearable. It shattered her. Absolutely 00:22:05.519 --> 00:22:07.319 shattered her. And you have to remember the context. 00:22:07.380 --> 00:22:10.680 This is 1943. World War II is raging. The world 00:22:10.680 --> 00:22:13.039 feels like it's on fire. And now her personal 00:22:13.039 --> 00:22:15.079 world has completely collapsed. She must have 00:22:15.079 --> 00:22:18.160 felt so alone. Isolated, grieving, and watching 00:22:18.160 --> 00:22:20.480 the world destroy itself. How did she survive 00:22:20.480 --> 00:22:23.500 that? She poured it into her work. This grief 00:22:23.500 --> 00:22:26.519 profoundly influenced her final volume of poetry 00:22:26.519 --> 00:22:29.359 published during her lifetime, Lagar. Lagar. 00:22:29.400 --> 00:22:32.180 Which means? Wine press. It appeared in 1954. 00:22:32.660 --> 00:22:35.440 A wine press. Yes. And the metaphor is crystal 00:22:35.440 --> 00:22:38.339 clear. She is the grape. Life is the press. She's 00:22:38.339 --> 00:22:40.819 being crushed to produce the poetry. It's an 00:22:40.819 --> 00:22:43.619 incredibly painful image. That is a visceral 00:22:43.619 --> 00:22:46.619 image. It's not just sadness. It's destruction. 00:22:47.130 --> 00:22:49.670 It's being crushed. It is poetry of suffering, 00:22:49.789 --> 00:22:52.549 of being pressed by life. It's much more complex, 00:22:52.609 --> 00:22:54.710 much more modern than her earlier work. It's 00:22:54.710 --> 00:22:57.470 jagged. It's the work of a survivor. Now, this 00:22:57.470 --> 00:22:59.569 brings us to the aspect of her private life that 00:22:59.569 --> 00:23:02.349 has caused the most debate in recent years. For 00:23:02.349 --> 00:23:05.109 a long time, the story was she lost her railway 00:23:05.109 --> 00:23:07.589 worker love. She remained celibate and faithful 00:23:07.589 --> 00:23:10.650 to his memory. And she was this suffering, saintly 00:23:10.650 --> 00:23:13.789 figure. The tragic spinster narrative. Exactly. 00:23:14.029 --> 00:23:16.710 But new evidence suggests that might not be the 00:23:16.710 --> 00:23:18.529 whole truth at all. This is where we get into 00:23:18.529 --> 00:23:20.730 what is often called the revisionist view. For 00:23:20.730 --> 00:23:23.369 decades, biographers just accepted that narrative. 00:23:23.549 --> 00:23:25.710 It fit the mother of the nation myth perfectly. 00:23:26.230 --> 00:23:29.170 But scholars like Leisha Field Matta have challenged 00:23:29.170 --> 00:23:32.619 that traditional heteronormative story. The suggestion, 00:23:32.759 --> 00:23:35.380 backed by significant evidence, is that Gabriela 00:23:35.380 --> 00:23:37.920 Mistral was a lesbian. And this isn't just modern 00:23:37.920 --> 00:23:39.660 speculation, right? There's an actual archive. 00:23:39.779 --> 00:23:43.039 Yes, this is the game changer. In 2007, after 00:23:43.039 --> 00:23:45.779 the death of a woman named Doris Dana, a massive 00:23:45.779 --> 00:23:48.779 archive was discovered. Who was Doris Dana? Doris 00:23:48.779 --> 00:23:51.779 Dana was an American writer and she was Mistral's 00:23:51.779 --> 00:23:54.299 executor. She was also her companion for the 00:23:54.299 --> 00:23:56.759 last years of her life. She was 31 years younger 00:23:56.759 --> 00:24:00.710 than Mistral. They met in New York and were inseparable 00:24:00.710 --> 00:24:02.869 until Mistral's death. And what was in the archive? 00:24:03.210 --> 00:24:06.210 Letters. Thousands of documents. There were letters 00:24:06.210 --> 00:24:09.910 exchanged between Mistral and various occasional 00:24:09.910 --> 00:24:12.349 female lovers throughout her life. But most importantly, 00:24:12.529 --> 00:24:15.450 letters between her and Dana. Thousands of them. 00:24:15.549 --> 00:24:17.750 Yes. And they were published in a book called 00:24:17.750 --> 00:24:21.450 Nina Arante Wandering Girl in 2007. And the content 00:24:21.450 --> 00:24:24.250 of these letters. To modern eyes, it reads clearly 00:24:24.250 --> 00:24:27.130 as a romantic correspondence. There is deep intimacy, 00:24:27.410 --> 00:24:29.529 nicknames, expressions of love and jealousy. 00:24:30.089 --> 00:24:32.369 Mistral writes to Dana with this incredible passion. 00:24:32.549 --> 00:24:35.349 It suggests a long -lasting romantic relationship. 00:24:35.809 --> 00:24:37.869 So the saintly schoolteacher had a passionate 00:24:37.869 --> 00:24:40.769 life with women. It certainly seems so. However, 00:24:41.029 --> 00:24:43.690 and this is important for historical accuracy 00:24:43.690 --> 00:24:45.970 and nuance, we have to mention the conflict here. 00:24:46.069 --> 00:24:48.269 Okay. Doris Dana herself, while she was alive, 00:24:48.640 --> 00:24:51.200 explicitly denied it she denied it even with 00:24:51.200 --> 00:24:53.380 the letters in her final interview dana described 00:24:53.380 --> 00:24:55.660 their relationship as being like a stepmother 00:24:55.660 --> 00:24:58.460 and stepdaughter She denied being a lesbian herself 00:24:58.460 --> 00:25:01.359 and expressed skepticism about Mistral's sexual 00:25:01.359 --> 00:25:04.619 orientation being framed that way. That complicates 00:25:04.619 --> 00:25:06.259 things. You have the written evidence that looks 00:25:06.259 --> 00:25:08.519 one way and the testimony of the surviving partner 00:25:08.519 --> 00:25:11.640 saying, no, it wasn't that. It raises a fascinating 00:25:11.640 --> 00:25:14.059 discussion about how we interpret history and 00:25:14.059 --> 00:25:17.299 private lives. Was Dana protecting Mistral's 00:25:17.299 --> 00:25:20.220 legacy? Remember, for a Latin American icon to 00:25:20.220 --> 00:25:22.980 be outed as queer even in 2007 was controversial. 00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:26.480 In the 1950s, it would have been career suicide. 00:25:26.819 --> 00:25:29.119 Or maybe our modern labels just don't fit. That's 00:25:29.119 --> 00:25:31.200 the other possibility. Was Dana defining their 00:25:31.200 --> 00:25:33.240 relationship in terms that simply don't fit our 00:25:33.240 --> 00:25:35.700 modern labels of gay or straight? It's the roommate 00:25:35.700 --> 00:25:37.619 phenomenon we see throughout history. Just our 00:25:37.619 --> 00:25:40.480 friends. Exactly. But regardless of the label, 00:25:40.579 --> 00:25:43.059 what the archive proves is that the lonely spinster 00:25:43.059 --> 00:25:46.220 narrative is false. She wasn't alone. She had 00:25:46.220 --> 00:25:49.019 profound, intense, loving relationships with 00:25:49.019 --> 00:25:52.170 women. The saintly schoolteacher image doesn't 00:25:52.170 --> 00:25:54.829 account for that complexity. It tries to erase 00:25:54.829 --> 00:25:57.890 her desire. It adds so much depth to her. She 00:25:57.890 --> 00:26:00.849 wasn't just a statue. She was a human being with 00:26:00.849 --> 00:26:04.069 complex desire. Precisely. And all of this, the 00:26:04.069 --> 00:26:06.730 grief over Yin -Yin, the travel, the secret loves, 00:26:07.029 --> 00:26:10.349 the political activism, it all culminates in 00:26:10.349 --> 00:26:13.329 1945. The big one. The Nobel Prize. The Nobel. 00:26:13.650 --> 00:26:17.339 1945. She travels to Sweden. King Gustav presents 00:26:17.339 --> 00:26:19.539 her with the award. What do the citations say? 00:26:19.619 --> 00:26:21.619 Why did they choose her? It's beautiful. It says 00:26:21.619 --> 00:26:23.720 she received the prize for her lyric poetry, 00:26:23.980 --> 00:26:27.279 which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made 00:26:27.279 --> 00:26:29.460 her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations 00:26:29.460 --> 00:26:32.339 of the entire Latin American world. The entire 00:26:32.339 --> 00:26:34.559 Latin American world. That is a heavy crown to 00:26:34.559 --> 00:26:36.500 wear. It is. She was the voice of the continent. 00:26:36.740 --> 00:26:39.539 And remember the timing, 1945. The world is just 00:26:39.539 --> 00:26:42.000 stepping out of the ashes of World War II. Right. 00:26:42.099 --> 00:26:45.099 The Holocaust, the atomic bombs. Humanity is 00:26:45.099 --> 00:26:47.599 traumatized. Her voice, which spoke of sorrow, 00:26:47.740 --> 00:26:50.240 but also of human dignity and the rights of children, 00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:53.660 it resonated so deeply in that post -war moment. 00:26:53.839 --> 00:26:56.640 She offered a kind of moral clarity. So she wins 00:26:56.640 --> 00:26:58.700 the Nobel, she's on top of the world, but she 00:26:58.700 --> 00:27:01.180 doesn't go back to Chile. No. She stayed abroad. 00:27:01.339 --> 00:27:03.720 She moved to the United States eventually. Her 00:27:03.720 --> 00:27:06.279 health started to decline. She had diabetes and 00:27:06.279 --> 00:27:09.740 heart problems. She settled in New York. Specifically 00:27:09.740 --> 00:27:12.460 in Roslyn and then Hempstead on Long Island. 00:27:12.660 --> 00:27:15.039 A long way from the Elkwee Valley. A very long 00:27:15.039 --> 00:27:17.839 way. And that is where she passed away on January 00:27:17.839 --> 00:27:21.299 10th, 1957. She died of pancreatic cancer at 00:27:21.299 --> 00:27:24.380 the age of 67. And Doris Dana was with her. Doris 00:27:24.380 --> 00:27:26.680 Dana was by her side. Her remains were returned 00:27:26.680 --> 00:27:28.740 to Chile, though. They were. The Chilean government 00:27:28.740 --> 00:27:31.720 declared three days of national mourning. Hundreds 00:27:31.720 --> 00:27:33.779 of thousands of people came out to pay their 00:27:33.779 --> 00:27:36.400 respects. She was a hero. But this is where the 00:27:36.400 --> 00:27:39.640 story takes another twist. After she died, her 00:27:39.640 --> 00:27:43.299 image kind of got kidnapped. That is a fair way 00:27:43.299 --> 00:27:45.170 to put it. We have to look at what happened in 00:27:45.170 --> 00:27:47.789 Chile in the 1970s and 80s. The Pinochet dictatorship. 00:27:48.289 --> 00:27:50.730 Exactly. General Augusto Pinochet's military 00:27:50.730 --> 00:27:54.869 regime took power in 1973. Now, authoritarian 00:27:54.869 --> 00:27:57.609 regimes, they love symbols of patriotism, but 00:27:57.609 --> 00:27:59.529 they hate radicals. They hate complexity. They 00:27:59.529 --> 00:28:01.250 need simple stories to control the narrative. 00:28:01.549 --> 00:28:03.549 So what did they do with Mistral? I mean, she 00:28:03.549 --> 00:28:06.470 was a socialist sympathizer, an advocate for 00:28:06.470 --> 00:28:09.349 the poor, possibly queer. That does not sound 00:28:09.349 --> 00:28:11.650 like a Pinochet icon. So they stripped all of 00:28:11.650 --> 00:28:13.940 that away. They appropriated her image, they 00:28:13.940 --> 00:28:17.240 put her on the money, they built statues, but 00:28:17.240 --> 00:28:20.180 they portrayed her strictly as the mother of 00:28:20.180 --> 00:28:22.809 the nation. They emphasized the lullabies. They 00:28:22.809 --> 00:28:24.950 emphasized the lullabies and the submission. 00:28:25.269 --> 00:28:28.490 They used her image to promote the idea of social 00:28:28.490 --> 00:28:31.710 order and traditional sacrifice. They ignored 00:28:31.710 --> 00:28:34.769 the fiery essays on social reform. They ignored 00:28:34.769 --> 00:28:37.789 the indigenous advocacy. They definitely ignored 00:28:37.789 --> 00:28:39.809 the private life. They made her into a kind of 00:28:39.809 --> 00:28:42.069 strict grandmother figure who tells you to behave. 00:28:42.329 --> 00:28:44.349 That's a perfect way to put it. They turned her 00:28:44.349 --> 00:28:46.829 into the harmless old lady on the banknote. They 00:28:46.829 --> 00:28:49.190 sanitized her to make her safe for the regime. 00:28:49.490 --> 00:28:52.039 And it is only been in recent decades, with the 00:28:52.039 --> 00:28:54.279 return of democracy and the work of scholars 00:28:54.279 --> 00:28:57.480 finding those archives, that the real Gabriela 00:28:57.480 --> 00:28:59.579 Mistral is being reclaimed. The woman who was 00:28:59.579 --> 00:29:02.420 fierce, independent, and dangerous to the status 00:29:02.420 --> 00:29:04.900 quo. Yes. And she even had one last surprise 00:29:04.900 --> 00:29:08.059 for the world after she died, didn't she? A posthumous 00:29:08.059 --> 00:29:11.519 book. Yes. Palma de Chile, Poem of Chile, published 00:29:11.519 --> 00:29:15.759 in 1967. It's a very spiritual journey. In the 00:29:15.759 --> 00:29:18.700 poem, her ghost returns to Chile. Her ghost. 00:29:18.740 --> 00:29:21.339 Her ghost. She is accompanied by an indigenous 00:29:21.339 --> 00:29:24.519 boy from the Atacama Desert and an Andean deer, 00:29:24.799 --> 00:29:28.460 a Humul. That is so mystical. A ghost, a boy, 00:29:28.579 --> 00:29:31.339 and a deer walking through Chile. It is. It depicts 00:29:31.339 --> 00:29:34.019 her revisioning her homeland, walking through 00:29:34.019 --> 00:29:36.720 the flowers, the rocks, the geography one last 00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:39.799 time. It really foreshadowed a lot of the epic 00:29:39.799 --> 00:29:42.180 traditions that later poets would explore. It 00:29:42.180 --> 00:29:44.579 was her final love letter to the land she left, 00:29:44.700 --> 00:29:46.839 but never truly forgot. It brings it all full 00:29:46.839 --> 00:29:49.099 circle. She started in that rugged landscape, 00:29:49.359 --> 00:29:51.880 she conquered the world, and in her final work, 00:29:52.019 --> 00:29:54.480 she goes back home in spirit. It's a beautiful 00:29:54.480 --> 00:29:56.680 ending to her story. So let's bring this all 00:29:56.680 --> 00:29:58.680 back together. We started with a face on a bill. 00:29:58.740 --> 00:30:01.079 A simple school teacher. And we found a woman 00:30:01.079 --> 00:30:03.640 who overcame fatherlessness and crushing poverty 00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:05.960 in a rural village. Who taught herself when the 00:30:05.960 --> 00:30:08.059 institutions rejected her. Who built education 00:30:08.059 --> 00:30:10.180 systems in other countries when her own country 00:30:10.180 --> 00:30:12.779 pushed her away. A woman who won the Nobel Prize 00:30:12.779 --> 00:30:14.819 before any of the famous men of her continent. 00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:18.680 And who navigated these profound tragedies. The 00:30:18.680 --> 00:30:21.839 suicide of a lover. The suicide of a son. And 00:30:21.839 --> 00:30:23.940 lived a private life that defied the conservative 00:30:23.940 --> 00:30:27.000 norms of her time, all while serving as a diplomat 00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:29.579 and as a voice for the voiceless. She was so 00:30:29.579 --> 00:30:32.140 much more than the lullaby lady. She was a fighter. 00:30:32.339 --> 00:30:35.220 She was a fierce autodidact, a force of nature. 00:30:35.380 --> 00:30:38.119 As she said herself, she was the mistral wind. 00:30:38.319 --> 00:30:41.200 Exactly. It really makes you think. We walk around 00:30:41.200 --> 00:30:43.259 with these symbols in our pockets, on our coins, 00:30:43.400 --> 00:30:46.319 on stamps. We see statues, and we think we know 00:30:46.319 --> 00:30:49.349 them. But history, especially for women, has 00:30:49.349 --> 00:30:51.730 a way of smoothing out all the rough edges. It 00:30:51.730 --> 00:30:53.950 favors the simple narrative of the saint over 00:30:53.950 --> 00:30:56.630 the complex reality of the human. Because saints 00:30:56.630 --> 00:30:59.789 are safe. Humans are messy. So here's a thought 00:30:59.789 --> 00:31:02.509 to leave you with today. If Gabriella Mistral, 00:31:02.670 --> 00:31:05.529 the Nobel Prize winner, a national hero featured 00:31:05.529 --> 00:31:08.369 on Money, could have her true identity, her sexuality, 00:31:08.650 --> 00:31:11.049 and her radical politics obscured for decades 00:31:11.049 --> 00:31:14.509 to fit a narrative of social order, who else 00:31:14.509 --> 00:31:16.710 are we totally misremembering right now? What 00:31:16.710 --> 00:31:18.950 other saints of history were actually rebels 00:31:18.950 --> 00:31:21.509 in disguise? That is the question. The archives 00:31:21.509 --> 00:31:24.210 are always there waiting to be opened. A pleasure 00:31:24.210 --> 00:31:26.710 as always. Thanks for diving deep with us today.