Archives of an Activist: Celebrating the Donations of Rita Arditti to UMass Boston
On Monday, April 22, 2013, University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston held an event celebrating the life and work of Rita Arditti, as well as the many donations made by Arditti and her Executors to the Library at UMass Boston.
Arditti was an Argentinean professor living in the United States who learned about Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, pictured above), an organization that searches for children who were abducted during the Argentinean military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. Arditti visited and conducted interviews with the Grandmothers, which were incorporated into her book Searching for Life: The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Disappeared Children of Argentina. Arditti spoke publicly about the Grandmothers’ work until her death in 2009.
The celebration included the opening of an exhibition, titled “Nunca Más”: Niños Desaparecidos en Argentina y Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (“Never Again”: Disappeared Children in Argentina and the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo), in the Library’s Grossmann Gallery. Speakers included UMass Boston professors Estelle Disch and Ann Blum, Dean of University Libraries Daniel Ortiz, University Archivist Joanne Riley, and UMass Boston alumna Doris Cristobal.
Explore the Rita Arditti Collection by visiting openarchives.umb.edu.