Alicia Partnoy knows political persecution. The deceptively quaint title of her 1986 memoir The Little School belies the horrors she experienced. The “school” was what her tormentors nicknamed a house for detainees on a military base in Argentina. It was there that Partnoy, after she was seized by army troops at age 21, was held for more than three months while blindfolded and subjected to mock executions.
It was 1977, during a violent repression, when the military set out to kill not only guerilla fighters but also left-wing dissidents. The government eventually transferred Partnoy to a prison before expelling her and her 4-year-old daughter from Argentina, when the Carter administration granted her political asylum.
Now a professor emerita of modern languages and literatures at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Partnoy closely follows the growing ties between her native land and her adopted country. President Donald Trump and Argentine President Javier Milei are both pursuing economic cutbacks as they heap praise on each other, prompting Partnoy to brand Milei as Trump’s “apprentice,” a reference to the president’s reality television show. But in an era when historians and political analysts warn of creeping authoritarianism, she is quick to point out that Trump and Milei were both elected. The same cannot be said of the military officers in Argentina who seized power in 1976 and ruled until 1983, killing thousands of civilians, including several of Partnoy’s friends.
She faults both Republican and Democratic presidents for the poor treatment of migrants. And she puts her faith in young people, more so than in institutions, to oppose human rights abuses.
Aside from The Little School, Partnoy is the author of multiple collections of poetry. She and her husband were profiled in the documentary Belonging in the USA: The Story of Alicia and Antonio, which won honors last year at international film festivals.
Partnoy spoke to Capital & Main at her home office in Los Angeles.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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Capital & Main: It’s believed that there aren’t enough physical detention facilities to process the massive number of unauthorized immigrants that President Donald Trump says he wants to deport. At times, the federal government has used military facilities to house immigrants. Given your experience being kept in a house on a military base in Argentina, are you concerned about the conditions that immigrants would be held in if Trump rounds up thousands of people at a time?
Alicia Partnoy: Of course I’m concerned. But I’m concerned at the state of the immigrants imprisoned in the U.S., what they used to call children in cages, under different administrations. So if this wasn’t stopped before … I’m concerned about the concentration camps. I mean, let’s call them refugee camps on the border throughout the Democratic presidencies.
This will be a massive disaster. And I hope young people resist the same way they were resisting what happened in Gaza. I hope the people mobilize. One of the hopes that the Democrats were presenting to the Latino population in the U.S. is, “Oh, if we win, things will be much better.” The problem is they didn’t show, when they were in power, that things could be better.
In your book, you detail how you were subjected to starvation and torture while forced to wear a blindfold almost around the clock, a horrible experience. Did that teach you how to witness things without seeing them and did those lessons carry over at all to how you experience things today?
You know, that book was used as evidence in the trials against the genocide perpetrators [in Argentina], right? “Without seeing” … that’s a beautiful image that you made there, you concocted there. It’s fascinating, because most of us in the human rights movement denounce wrongdoings without seeing them, relying on the words of people who testify about the sorrows.
We are not always on missions. I went to the [Israeli] occupied territories back in the ’80s when the first Intifada started, because I wanted to witness. I didn’t know to what extent the silence of the world was going to allow for the extermination of the Palestinian people today. So sometimes we have the privilege of being able to be in the place and witness, and maybe we don’t do enough.
One thing that is interesting to me is that Argentina’s president from 1976 to 1981, Jorge Rafael Videla, and others in the government said they were defending Western Christian civilization against terrorists. How do you view that rhetoric as compared to some of the language of President Trump and his supporters who say that he is restoring Christian values in the country?
You call him “President” Videla? He was the general head of the junta that took power by force. Trump was elected. I feel more at ease comparing Trump with Milei than comparing Trump with the dictatorship. Because there was a military coup. Maybe the [Jan. 6 Capitol riot] was to provoke that, but the system did not allow it to happen. Maybe in any Latin American country back in the ’70s, that situation would have provoked the military forces [to say], “Oh well, it’s time for us to take over.” Maybe that was Trump’s hope back then. Maybe his history was a bit dated.
You’re comparing Trump to an already-in-place dictatorship that had been supported by sectors of the middle class. They knocked at the doors of the headquarters of the army and said, “Come and save us from this chaos.” How many of the people, who were supportive of the military dictatorship before it took over, lost their children, lost their family members to that repression? That was a big lesson for our society.
It sounds that in some ways you’re hopeful that the institutions in the United States could push back against political violence that may come from the Trump administration.
Not only the institutions; it has to be the resistance of the people. I have a heavy criticism against the Democratic Party for not allowing the most progressive people in the party to take positions of power that would be meaningful to the people. In Argentina, it’s the same. It’s not the institutions, it’s the resistance.
I’ve seen in the United States this huge youth movement taking over universities to stop the genocide in Palestine, the Gaza bombardment. It takes so much energy and so much time, and I hope the people, the young people, are not discouraged because the struggle is long. I’m not totally hopeful. I think this system protects itself better than our systems in Latin America. But I still hope the people’s resistance is what will make a difference eventually, with a lot of loss, with a lot of pain, with a lot of hurt to the people. But it’s the only way.
Milei has shown admiration for Trump. He has also drastically cut public spending, which has affected students and pensioners. How similar or dissimilar do you think the economic agendas of Trump and Milei are, especially as it relates to programs that address inequality?
Trump enjoys, a lot, his apprentice there. He treats Milei as he would treat one of his apprentices that are a bit successful. But patronizing him to the extreme. And Milei believes that he’s been admired.
But Milei’s economic policies are towards giving away the national resources. He wants to give everything to the United States, or to whoever buys it at the cheapest price. On the other hand, Trump’s economic policy is protectionist. So this is completely the opposite in terms of economics.
In Argentina, like you said, the retired people were the most affected because he [Milei] decided that they were wealthy enough, and they were not going to be hurt. So all his success, his economic success, is because he is cutting any welfare rights of the people.
