TESTIMONY: THE MARIA GUARDADO STORY Latin Cinema Series

Director Randy Vasquez was immediately impressed when he met Maria Guardado at a political meeting in 1997. Drawn to her spirit and ideas, he started documenting her protests in and around Los Angeles.

A patient woman with the stubborn, admirable idealism of a dozen student activists, Guardado is a familiar sight at the Los Angeles Federal Building, where she sits on the marble steps holding a handmade sign describing the CIA’s involvement in her 1980 abduction and savage abuse by the El Salvadorian death squads. Archbishop Oscar Romero publicly called for her release and became a martyr two months later. Although the United States-supported civil war in her native El Salvador used torture to break the spirit of rebels and steer them away from politics, for Guardado ii did just the opposite. Torture polished and perfected her anger, spurring her to .become a zealous advocate with a face that pops up at every Los Angeles rally; demanding quantities of justice that take even her liberal cohorts aback.

Director Randy Vasquez has created a wonderful portrait, fluidly melding activist Maria Guardado’s personal experiences with. broader, critical questions about the sometimes-unsavory alliances of US policy implemented abroad.