A public lecture by Victoria Sanford (Lehman Professor of Excellence, Lehman College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York)
2024-2025 Center Research Fellow

Organized by the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research

(Join us in person or online on Zoom)

Friends Who Disappear is about historical memory and documentary evidence of the Guatemalan state practice of forced disappearance of civilians during the military regimes following the 1954 US-backed overthrow of democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz. It is also a forensic investigation into Dr. Marvyn Perez’s childhood abduction and torture by Guatemalan state forces. It is a story of survival and the search for safe haven, justice, and reparations. Marvyn was one of 5,000 urban and rural children disappeared by state forces during the Guatemalan Genocide of the 1980s. His experience is unique because he survived to share the story of his journey back from the abyss and his continuous struggle for justice.

In this lecture, Professor Sanford shares forensic experiences investigating forced disappearance in Guatemala and highlights contemporary justice-seeking efforts. This project is about the intersection of the lives of the disappeared with state terror, the trauma of migration, and the bureaucratic wall of denial that holds justice out of reach. At one and the same time, it is about the interconnectedness of young citizens in the Americas and beyond seeking to build a just world and future.

REGISTER HERE

Lunch will be served.