2023-10-21 03:25:00
For Sabrina Gullino Valenzuela Negro, “in life the chips settle and fall when they should fall” and one of the most important in her life fell in December 2008, when she recovered her identity as the daughter of missing persons. Having completed her studies in Social Communication at the University of Rosario, she had become independent and had a couple of “to-dos”: to get a passport to travel the world and request a DNA analysis from the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo to clear up any doubts regarding her identity. biological origin, just the same week that his adoptive parents are summoned by the Federal Court of Paraná in a case (“Trimarco” of 2005) that investigated, among other issues, the fate of children born in the Military Hospital of Rosario.
“I already had a doubt, I was born at that time (full dictatorship) and a friend insisted that I take the analysis, but it was not a doubt that tormented me, that did not let me sleep. It was something to discard. I never thought I would meet two families who were looking for me.the Negro family and the Valenzuelas, my grandparents, my two uncles from San Juan who had donated blood for the National Genetic Data Bank,” among others.
Sabrina learned at 30 that she was the granddaughter recovered by Abuelas N°96, daughter of Edgard Tulio Valenzuela and Raquel Carolina Ángela Negro, Montoneros militants, kidnapped on January 2, 1978. in Mar del Plata and taken to the “Quinta de Funes” Clandestine Detention Center in Santa Fe. Raquel was pregnant with twins and gave birth between March 3 and 4, 1978 at the Paraná Military Hospital. Due to health complications, Sabrina and her twin are referred to the Private Pediatric Institute of Paraná as “López, Soledad” and “López, NN”. Both are discharged on March 27, 1978 and Sabrina is abandoned at the Rosario Orphan Home. To this day his parents are missing, as is his twin, whom he is still searching for, with the help of Grandmothers and Justice. He has already testified in several cases.
Sabrina participated on Tuesday in a collective interview with Communication students at the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences, within the “Week for Identity and Memory in the Alto Valle” that carried out several activities in Roca and Neuquén. She has a particular sense of humor and accompanies the story of dramatic events with anecdotes and jokes that relieve tension.
Sabrina proudly carries her three surnames, since Gullino was able to add those of her parents, Valenzuela and Negro, to the adoptive Gullino as part of the process of reconstructing her identity.
From birth until I was 24 days old I was a twin sister. When they adopt me, until I’m 30, I’m Carla’s older sister. And since I restored my identity I am the middle sister, with two others.”
Sabrina Guillino Valenzuela Negro, daughter of missing people and recovered granddaughter
“I had never doubted my identity too much because My parents (Raúl Gullino and Susana Scola) legally adopted me and never hid anything from me. I knew from the age of 3 that she had been adopted, and later which lawyer had done the process and in which court the adoption had been made. In Villa Ramallo there was not much talk regarding the civil-military dictatorship, there were no human rights in schools like now, there was no Memorial Day on March 24” comments. “And the image I had of appropriate babies was greatly influenced by media cases such as that of the Reggiardo Tolosa twins; If you were appropriate it had to be someone from the Armed Forces, who had lied to you regarding your origin, that kind of thing. In my case it had all been legal and even later my parents adopted another sister, so we always talked regarding it, even with jokes, regarding how we mightn’t even lend each other shoes because we all wear different sizes,” she says.
He said that this aspect is very important, since it has been shown “that there are many cases of adoptions of children of disappeared people in good faith, because one of the mechanisms of appropriation was to leave the children of murdered or missing militants abandoned on the street. or in some institution, with which they were later incorporated into the legal adoption process. In my case, my parents did not appropriate me, but there was a systematic practice that made it possible,” he highlighted.
The role of the university
In the talk, he commented that his time at the University of Rosario and his militancy had a lot to do with his process. “When at 18 I went to study Social Communication, HIJOS (Children for Identity and Justice once morest Forgetting and Silence) burst onto the political scene, who carried out events, clubs to raise funds but which were also dissemination activities… They bring something important which was the political identity of the disappeared: that State terrorism disappeared people for their militancy, That famous ‘they must have done something’ of the dictatorship was to organize to defend rights, political participation,” he added.
She remembered that one of her classmates encouraged her to take the exams, given her adoption date. Sabrina used to joke with her: “‘You because you want to have a friend who is the daughter of missing people to have more cool’, because being from CHILDREN gave you a more rebellious profile,” she adds with a laugh. However, doubt was sown and opened the process that marked her future life.
For this reason, he highlighted the importance of the public university maintaining these spaces for discussion. “At the faculty I began to learn regarding the texts of the Memory, there was a free professorship called Arturo Jauretche and I think that climate of debate regarding what had happened in the dictatorship was fundamental, at that time we also debated the Education Law Superior, a project that came with the endorsement of the International Monetary Fund,” he recalls.
Meeting
The most emotional moment of the interview with Sabrina was undoubtedly the story of her reunion with her biological family. The communicator related that “I received a call from Justice on a Saturday morning, to inform me of the DNA result, I had asked to be the first to know. On Monday I return to Rosario, I find out my brother Seba’s number, from the court they had proposed that a psychologist accompany me but I didn’t want to know anything: I know my brother alone, I said. Sebastián Alvarez, Raquel Negro’s son, worked at the Human Rights Secretariat of Santa Fe. Sabrina asked a friend who worked there for the phone number, but she mightn’t reach him. Later, she receives a call: “it was Seba, he tells me ‘hello, black girl, what are you doing?’ I was washing the patio, but I wasn’t going to tell him that (laughs) so I answered ‘nothing’ and when I ask him what he’s doing he answers ‘I’m locked in the bathroom crying,’” she remembers. Finally, they agree to let him go to her house. “I remember him bathed, with a new shirt and a backpack full of photos. I never knew what he said to me when we saw each other, we did talk until two in the morning followingwards,” he recalls.
Then came the presentation with grandparents, uncles and other relatives of the Valenzuela and Negro families. Even another brother, the product of Tulio’s relationship with a woman named Norma Espinosa, “who also knew that she might be his son, but he wanted to do the DNA more when he found out that he might have a sister,” he said. he.
The search for his twin continues
With three surnames and different families, he assures that today he has an “identity under construction.” “From the time I was born until I was 24 days old I was a twin sister. From the time I was adopted, until I was 30, I was the older sister of Carla, the other daughter my Gullino family adopted. And since I was 30, when I restored my identity, I have been the middle sister, with two others,” she says. And also, in search of his twin, whose fate is unknown. “He is a missing person who is still alive and we are still looking for him. That is why we talk regarding crimes once morest humanity, because the illegal appropriation continues to be committed, as does the disappearance of my parents. We know that Melli was discharged and did not end up in Rosario, as happened to me,” he said.
In this search, Sabrina has participated in the Guerrieri I, II and III trials, for the disappearance of her parents and is a plaintiff and testified in the case of the Military Hospital of Paraná, for the theft of his identity and that of his brother. In this search, the testimonies of nurses from the Military Hospital and the Private Pediatric Institute of Rosario, the last known destination, have been key. Last September 1st, Judge Noemí Berros ratified the prison sentences once morest doctors Miguel Torrealday and Jorge Rossi, accused of participating in the appropriation process. “The medical corporation has maintained a pact of silence for 45 years. Those doctors never recognized that we twins had passed through there and they discharged us. They never said who they gave the other twin to, but not the nurses, both at the hospital and the clinic. Here once more we see the role of women, key to retracing this path of identity,” she concludes.
“Memory Week” and its role in times of denialism
Sabrina Gullino Valenzuela Negro’s visit took place within the framework of the “week of memory”, a series of activities organized by unions, academic entities and human rights organizations. There, talks, presentations by Gullino and artistic activities were combined with the beginning of the 8th trial for crimes once morest humanity, where civilians responsible for the last dictatorship are judged.
One of the recurring questions for the recovered granddaughter 96 was the topic of speeches that deny state terrorism, talk regarding a “war” and relativize the number of missing people.
In this regard, Sabrina pointed out that from her perspective, “we should not get angry with the young people who today adhere to this type of leadership and discourse, but rather try to dialogue, explain and convince. It must be recognized that many feel outside the system and go to the point of identifying with people who plan to destroy their rights, explicitly. We should ask ourselves why these types of speeches resonate: if we are falling into repetitive arguments, if we do not reflect and criticize these imperfect democracies that we have, even though we must strengthen them,” she said.
At another point in the talk, the communicator pointed out that “We talk regarding memory, which is precisely the construction of a meaning regarding something that happened in the past, a historical fact. Y in memory there are disputes of meaning, a power group tries to impose its vision of the facts on what another thinks. The past is always built in the present, there is a construction of the meaning of what happened.” And he points out that there is the role of the communicator.
“The new rights in the world use new technologies, Tik Tok, short videos that are like a blow to the jaw of sensations, feelings of anger, hatred, without explanation. We go for the encounter with the other, the dialogue, the conversation, the criticism. That takes time. The challenge as communicators is how we adapt and find new ways to communicate.”
Sabrina is a social communicator and works as a teacher at the National University of Rosario. She coordinates the education and communication area of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo Rosario. She is a member of the Aguará Editorial Collective, a publishing house that she shares with others that combines activism in human rights, teaching and communication through formats such as comics to tell stories on the subject of human and social rights.
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