Evita "Eva" Peron Argentina: Biography movie essay

She worked tirelessly for her people and the Argentine people loved her and she was so deserving of their love and she returned it tenfold. Viva Evita!

Please do watch this video: Must watch.

María Eva Duarte de Perón (7th May 1919 - 26th July 1952) was the wife of President Juan Domingo Perón and served as the First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952, she died at the age of 33. She is often referred to as simply Eva Perón, or by the affectionate Spanish language diminutive Evita, which literally translates into English as "Little Eva". She was born out of wedlock in rural Argentina in 1919. In 1934, at the age of 15, she went to the nation's capital of Buenos Aires, where she pursued a career as a stage, radio, and film actress. Eva met Colonel Juan Perón on 22nd January 1944, in Buenos Aires during a charity event at the Luna Park Stadium to benefit the victims of an earthquake in San Juan. The two were married the following year. In 1946, Juan Perón was elected President of Argentina. Over the course of the next six years, Eva Perón became powerful within the Pro-Peronist trade unions, essentially for speaking on behalf of labour rights. She also ran the Ministries of Labour and Health, founded and ran the charitable Eva Perón Foundation, championed women's suffrage in Argentina, and founded and ran the nation's first large-scale female political party, the Female Peronist Party. In 1951, Eva Perón accepted the Peronist nomination for the office of Vice President of Argentina. In this bid, she received great support from the Peronist political base, low-income and working class Argentines who were referred to as descamisados or "shirtless ones". However, opposition from the nation's military and elite, coupled with her declining health, ultimately forced her to withdraw her candidacy. In 1952 shortly before her death from cancer at the age of 33, Eva Perón was given the official title of "Spiritual Leader of the Nation" by the Argentine Congress. Eva Perón was given an official state funeral despite the fact that she was not an elected head of state.

They wrote a very beautiful song for her, titled "Don't cry for me Argentina".

It is such a melodious song that touched me so much even as a child.



"Don't cry for me Argentina

The truth is I never left you

All through my wild days

My mad existence

I kept my promise

Don't keep your distance



And as for fortune, and as for fame

I never invited them in

Though it seemed to the world they were all I desired



They are illusions

They are not the solutions they promised to be

The answer was here all the time

I love you and hope you love me



Don't cry for me Argentina"

I heard this song for first time back  thanks to Madonna's version. Here it is.

Some quotes of Eva Peron



"I am my own woman."



"I know that, like every woman of the people, I have more strength than I appear to have."



"I have one thing that counts, and that is my heart; it burns in my soul, it aches in my flesh, and it ignites my nerves: that is my love for the people and Peron."



"The nation's government has just handed me the bill that grants us our civil rights. I am receiving it before you, certain that I am accepting this on behalf of all Argentinean women, and I can feel my hands tremble with joy as they grasp the laurel proclaiming victory."



"Keeping books on social aid is capitalistic nonsense. I just use the money for the poor. I can't stop to count it."



"Answer violence with violence. If one of us falls today, five of them must fall tomorrow."

(My thoughts: By the returning violence, I hope her emphasis was on "justice".)



"When the rich think about the poor, they have poor ideas."



"I was born Maria Eva Duarte in one of those miserable dry and sleepy little towns in 1919."



"When my father died it left me without any financial support. At the age of fifteen I ran off to Buenos Aires with a passing musician who promised to make me a film star . But soon after the musician left, I managed to stay alive by playing small parts in the theatre and films."



"If I have to apply five turns to the screw each day for the happiness of Argentina, I will do it."



"Shadows cannot see themselves in the mirror of the sun."



"To convince oneself that one has the right to live decently takes time."



"You must want! You have the right to ask! You must desire."



"I will come again, and I will be millions."



With a troubled background and life, yet there is so much good in this lady to adore. She worked 15+ hours a day at her foundation and received the poor until her cancer reached it's final stages. She passed away on a July 26th.

I don't see her as the "Spiritual leader of Argentina" but I do see her as a great politician who influenced the political system to reach out to what it really stands for. Cheers.