Elvia,

The Fight for Land and Liberty

30 minutes, 1988, aired on PBS

English and Spanish soundtracks

Rick Tejada-Flores & Laura Rodriguez,

Producers/Directors

 

Elvia Alvarado is a Honduran woman, an organizer who has fought for years to win land for those who have none.  A single mother of six, she has been arrested and tortured; Elvia left her husband when he wanted a stay-at-home wife.  She joined a Catholic charity group, but decided that she had to do more.  Ever since she has been in the forefront of the movement to enforce the land reform law that was supposed to give peasants a way to survive.  Every year landless peasants try to take over vacant land, and every year they are driven back, beaten and arrested.  Anyone who causes trouble in Honduras is labeled a Communist, but Elvia tells us that she doesn’t even know what communism is, she just knows that things have to change.  The film is based on the book Don’t Be Afraid, Gringo, by Medea Benjamin.