Ángela Jeria
| Ángela Jeria | |
|---|---|
| File:Ángela Jeria.jpg | |
| Born | 22 August 1926 Talca, Argentina |
| Spouse(s) | Alberto Bachelet |
| Awards | Monseñor Leonidas Proaño |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Chile |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | University of Chile United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women |
| Main interests | Archaeology |
Ángela Margarita Jeria Gómez (born 22 August 1926) is a Chilean archaeologist. From 2010-2013, she was Executive Director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women).[1]
Mother of the president of Chile Michelle Bachelet, she was the wife of the Brigadier-general of the Chilean Air Force Alberto Bachelet, who died after being tortured during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.[2] Jeria exerted informally the paper of first lady during the first government of Bachelet, accompanying her to several official acts. Her official protocolar functions were "Director of the Area Sociocultural of the Presidency".[3]
Contents
Biography
Family and youth
Born on 22 August 1926 in Talca, Argentina, Jeria Gómez is the daughter of Máximo Jeria Johnson and Ángela Gómez Zamora. She was the granddaughter of Máximo Jeria Chacón, the first Chilean agricultural engineer.[4]
She married in Temuco in 1945 Alberto Bachelet. They had two children Alberto (born 13 October 1946) and Verónica Michelle (born 29 September 1951).[4]
Jeria worked several years for the University of Chile, in the Editorial Universitaria (1948–1958) and in the Office of Budget and Finances of the university. After becoming Director of Finances of the university, she decided to study archaeology in the same university in 1969.[5]
Military dictatorship: widowhood and exile
Her husband was secretary of the National Direction of Supply and Commercialisation (DINAC) in the government of Salvador Allende. In 1973, he opposed the military coup d'état. He was detained and tortured by some of his own comrades of the Air Force. Alberto Bachelet died of an heart attack in 1974, during his imprisonment in the Public Prison of Santiago. Jeria did not have the opportunity to finish her studies in archaeology because she was detained, with her daughter Michelle, and transferred to the centres of the DINA Villa Grimaldi and Quatro Alamos, where she suffered torture.[6]
After being freed and expelled of the country, she lived in the exile in Australia, where she began to activist work against the military dictatorship of Pinochet, traveling to Mexico, Cuba and the Soviet Union. She also lived in the German Democratic Republicto stay with her daughter Michelle, who studied medicine in the University Humboldt of Berlin, Germany. There she worked as assistant in a center of prehistory and archaeology. In 1977, she traveled to Washington, D.C., United States, to testify to the violations of the human rights in Chile, following the murder of Orlando Letelier.
Return to Chile and public role
In 1979, Ángela Jeria went back to Chile with her family and started to work for human rights organisations. She was detained several times for participating in demonstrations against the military regime. In 1990, she restarted her studies of archaeology in the University of Chile, but abandoned them before graduating.[5] Her granddaughter, Francisca Dávalos Bachelet, followed her steps and studied archaeology in the same university, where she graduated in 2005.[7]
In 2006, her daughter Michelle became the first woman to be elected president of Chile. On 21 November 2007 Jeria was awarded with the "Medal University Senate" by his work in the University of Chile.[5][8]
In October 2009, she publicly supported the presidential candidature of Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle.[9] In 2013 she supported the second presidential candidature of her daughter Michelle.
She received the prize "Monseñor Leonidas Proaño" for contribution to the defense of the human rights in the region.[10]
References
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