Women in Peril: Where Suffering and Healing Meet
The title of “professor” doesn’t always bring to mind images of physical labor and manual community service. However, that is exactly how Professor Luis Ramos-Garcia's career began before his life in academia. Born and raised in Peru, Professor Ramos-Garcia, of the UMN Department of Spanish & Portuguese Studies, began his career as a clinical psychologist. His dedication toward his community was born from his Jesuit education and further cemented by the voluntary service he provided through his work as a firefighter. It was during his service that he was able to see how women in particular suffered from injustices. Where he lived, Ramos-Garcia met many women from various provinces, many of whom were Indigenous, and found that they did not have much protection.
When Ramos-Garcia entered the world of academia as a professor, he took the injustices he observed as inspiration for his work and advocacy. Ramos-Garcia is the founder of a twenty-nine-year-long project that sets out to create and use visual art as a form of documentation. Through symposiums, art exhibitions, and literature, Women in Peril serves to archive the experiences of victims of human rights violations. Through these diverse mediums, the project presents human rights violations in intersectional ways, contributing to a multidimensional understanding of human rights issues.
One particular case of injustice against the Indigenous population of Peru happened at the hands of the Peruvian government. The situation involved the forced sterilization of around 300,000 Indigenous men and women from the 1990s to early 2000s, which were kept hidden by the government. “The families began to send their complaints to the government, but the government did absolutely nothing,” Ramos-Garcia explained. Seeing how countless Indigenous women were not able to voice the pain they had gone through during their times of suffering, Ramos-Garcia was inspired to provide an avenue where women could use visual art to express the human rights violations they had experienced. His focus on women in his work stems from his Latin American roots. Coming from a family where he had sisters and many female cousins, he developed a deep connection to the role women have played in his life, and this connection held a strong presence while he developed the project.
To Preserve What Has Never Been Heard Before
As important as academic advocacy is for highlighting marginalized voices, it takes dedicated resources to make it a reality. The human rights community at the University of Minnesota was an important source of support for Ramos-Garcia’s work. At the U, Ramos-Garcia participated in human rights circles held by previous Human Rights Program director Barbara Frey over twenty years ago. During this time, Ramos-Garcia initiated the Women in Peril project. His project has involved women who had experienced the Vietnam War, women who had escaped North Korea, women who had just become refugees from Ukraine, and many women from Latin America who have faced human rights abuses at the hands of their government. Last year, Ramos-Garcia and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies hosted an art exhibition at Pillsbury Hall displaying art pieces made by and for victims at XXIX The State Of Iberoamerican Studies Series and Human Rights Initiative Project Symposium.
The Human Rights Initiative Research Fund provided essential funding to complete the project for the 2024-2025 year. The fund provides grants of up to $50,000 for UMN faculty-led interdisciplinary human rights research. With the funds, Ramos-Garcia was able to invite international scholars and artists from Latin America, the United States, and Europe and connected them with Minnesota communities whose work focused on women's rights issues to help create the pieces for the symposium. “I strongly believe that the University of Minnesota has one of the finest Human Rights Program in the country,” Ramos-Garcia says, “and I feel very proud that I received the Human Rights Initiative Grant that allowed me to do what I like the most: help as much as I could without discriminating against anyone.”
While the project has allowed a wide audience to gain a deeper understanding of the experiences and emotions of victims of human rights violations, it has also been therapeutic for many victims themselves. “Through art, we achieve a sense of community,” Ramos-Garcia says. “Out of nowhere, the victims start to cry as they share what they’ve been holding on to for so long. They’re able to let go of [the pain] they’ve had inside.” This year, Ramos-Garcia was also able to collaborate with Voice to Vision, a University of Minnesota project directed by Professor David Feinberg that strives to record the experiences of victims of human rights violations University Digital Conservancy website by having artists create visual representations of what the victims had gone through.
The Women in Peril Project Seeks to Continue On
Ramos-Garcia has already shared the project with a wider audience. He’s published the book, Justicia Social: Reinvindicaciones del Arte de Creación Colectiva [Social Justice: Claims of Collective Art Creation] by the Latin American Theater Review. He is also anticipating another book publication in 2026 which describes the experiences of the women and art featured in the 2025 Women in Peril Symposium. In recognition of his extensive efforts toward human rights, Ramos-Garcia has received both the President’s Award for Outstanding Service and the Global Programs and Strategy Alliance award at the University of Minnesota.
Women in Peril has been a source of passion for Professor Ramos-Garcia, and he hopes to continue the project for many years to come. However, the project’s future remains uncertain. In an evolving funding landscape, grants like the Human Rights Initiative provide important resources for researchers to continue their work. As Ramos-Garcia says, “You cannot write from books alone. You need to investigate outside so that you may grow.”
Through art, Ramos-Garcia is pioneering a path towards an all-embracing understanding of human rights violations and the experiences of human rights victims, while also showing how these experimental projects help raise awareness of human rights issues and push us towards justice and compassion. His work is truly emblematic of his commitment to his community, a commitment that continues to inspire others. “I’m interested in community. I’m interested in people! I’m interested in returning what has been given to me,” Ramos-Garcia says.
