Araceli Herrera: Yes, well, my name is Araceli Herrera. I’m from Mexico City and I live in San Antonio, Texas. I’m a domestic worker, I clean houses. And well, I’m going right to the point of my story. The thing is that I want to share my story. This was something so hard that it affected my whole life, it destroyed my life.

That’s why I ended up far from my family, from my country, from my things. Because of this thing that happened to me when I was very young. Well, I lived in the very, extremely poor neighborhoods on the outskirts of Mexico City. I always say that I was a young woman full of illusions, full of dreams. I was a dreamer, and I never imagined that evil existed to such a degree as to destroy someone.

So, I was living in neighborhoods so poor that there was a lot of violence, drugs were sold on the streets, many young people got into drugs and died on the streets. This was very, very ugly. I was the oldest of seven, there were seven of us. I have five sisters and one brother, the youngest, who, by the way, ended up on the streets, he still lives on the streets, he’s a monster and I didn’t want that for my brothers.

So, I said the only way to get out of there was to study and I was studying at school when I was in a group of classmates, and we went to do a project for school. And so I went with this team and the men raped me. They destroyed my life, they destroyed everything in my illusions.

I was so innocent, so stupid. I didn’t tell anyone. I mean, it was so painful, so traumatic what happened to me, that I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t tell my parents and it’s not that I was afraid, it’s that I was so shocked, because of what they did to me. It’s true that they raped me—I was so innocent—even though I was in school — I never thought that you really get pregnant, and I didn’t realize I was pregnant until I was three months along. And then I said, now what am I going to do? And I was there at school and in the nursing station and I went and told the nurse that I was pregnant and what had happened to me. And then I told the nurse that I didn’t want to have that child, because I didn’t know who the father was. My father was going to kill me if he found out I was pregnant, and my mom too. Because my father was very violent. He loved me very much, but he was very proud that I was studying and since I was the oldest, my father always said that I was the illusion of the family. It mattered that I was going to save them from this misery. So I was very afraid. I never said anything to my dad and to my mom and, they didn’t realize it. And then I even stopped going to school because I couldn’t go anymore, because my classmates began to notice that my stomach began to grow and the men made fun of me. The guys were saying things to me. They insulted me because I was pregnant. I didn’t know what to do.

So I never told my mom. Time went by and then once I remember that I was at the bus stop on a corner near where I live, and you could see my belly a little more, and some girls were there who were owners of a pharmacy. One of them went up to the second floor of the house and threw a bucket of water on me.

Can you imagine how hard it was for me, that I suffered because of those miserable bastards who raped me? So I wanted to get an abortion, and I was in school. Yes, I wanted to get an abortion, I didn’t want to have this child. I can’t in the first place because I’m young, I’m a girl. I don’t work. I’m studying. I have dreams. I want to graduate. I want to get out of here. And they said to me, No. They said a lot of things to me. They scolded me very ugly—like in the nursing station and they kicked me out of school. I lost everything, everything. I lost my life. I lost my illusions, my dreams. I lost everything and from there it was just knocking about through my whole life.

I would have liked for the politicians there to go and say, Oh, we are going to help you. We make the laws and we are going to support you. But, No, you are going out into the world knocking about blow after blow suffering because of the baby that you don’t have. This is why I am in favor of women having the right to choose, because if I had done that, my life would not have been messed up.

And I want to clarify something. I do not reject my son. I love him very much, but I would have been happier. I would not have ended up far from my country, from my life, from my things, working as a maid, because this is the only thing I can do. Working as a maid all my life, when I would have had a bright future, because I was a very good student, even though I was poor. I didn’t even have enough to eat when I went to school.

But I would have had a better future if those no-goods hadn’t raped me and if the laws—What most mattered for me was if they had let me have my right to choose if I was going to have that child or not. But no, they don’t understand. People do not understand that we have the right because only we know what has happened to us.

Only I know what happened to me. I only know what I can do. The capacity that I have to move forward, to have a child or not to have one. And for that reason, a few years ago, when they invited me to go to Austin, when the movement was very strong there in Austin, I said I have to go, and I went and gave my testimony and I will continue giving it as many times as necessary.

And I want to say that no one has the right to take away from us our right to decide about our bodies. Politicians are not the owners of my body, they are not the owners of my destiny. I am the owner of my destiny and of my body, and they do not have to make laws that affect us, that destroy our lives and that make us end up as I ended up far, far, far from everything in my family, and I am the only one who is in this country alone, with nothing.

And all my life I’ve been alone. Why? Because I was condemned by the laws, by politicians who decided for me. They don’t think about what is good for me, what is not good for me. For that reason I went to give my testimony, and now I want to go to New York to give my testimony and tell women, people.

We are the ones who have the right, not the politicians, not the priests, not the hypocrites of the churches, who are the hypocrites. They do not have the right to decide over my body. Hypocrites when they commit other kinds of sins in their churches and they do not have the right to condemn me, to point fingers at me, to tell me what I do not want to do because this is my life, my right.

This is what I want to say. So, this suffering lasted my whole life because of those absurd, crazy laws, because you can imagine when you have a child that is the product of rape, not only are you going to carry the pain of not knowing who the father was, who he would be, but also when your son asks you, “Mother, who is my father?”

What are you going to say? It hurts you right here [she points to her heart]. Are you going to tell your son this truth? This hurts your soul and the days go by, and he is growing up and demands that you tell him the truth. Who is my father? Who is my father? You have to act crazy, dumb, conceal it, to be able to avoid the truth and avoid telling them everything because of some absurd laws. That are absurd, that don’t allow you to have your right.

So this is my story. That it is my enormous desire that we be allowed to choose. Do not take away that right. Do not deprive us of that right. Our right to choose...

Michelle Xai: This is a very powerful story. I haven’t told people yet, but when I was young, I was very against abortion. And listening to these stories of real people who all their lives, like what you have been saying right now—all your life, this decision affected you.

Not only is this something so easy, like many people think, like I thought that you could have the baby and just give it up for adoption. Things don’t happen like that. It’s the woman, even if she is with the child. All the humiliations that you were describing, being pulled out of school, being humiliated in that way, as if this was your fault.

Araceli Herrera: My fault?

Michelle Xai: And well, I have two questions that came to mind. One, you came to Texas to tell your story. What was happening in Texas at the time when you went and told your story?

Araceli Herrera: We were in the same thing. Fighting for the woman’s right to choose about her body, to decide to have an abortion. So then we all were in that for about three or four years. I don’t remember. Maybe because I went with Sofia Tanner. She invited me. So that was the first time that I gave my testimony. I had never thought that my story was really useful. Sofia had known me for many years, and she had not the slightest idea of what I had lived through.

She knows my son. So she invited me and I said, Of course. And I went and gave my testimony. I was interviewed by many, many newspapers and TV channels. They were shocked by my story. And they interviewed me. And whenever possible, I am there fighting and fighting. I will not give my testimony like that again, but how I did it, I don’t know, but I have continued to support the groups and when I pass by Planned Parenthood, and I see that some stupid men who are there protesting. Well, I stop my car and go over and tell them, Look, look, no, don’t do this, you are men who should be ashamed. You should not be protesting so that women do not have this right. You should be ashamed. You should educate yourselves to respect a woman and see the value that a woman has. They should support her and don’t call them things and attack them.

And then in the churches... When we have had some protests here in San Antonio, in the Cathedral, there they are in the church, in the San Antonio Cathedral, where those protests are held and all those self-righteous men go there in trucks to protest. I haven’t won them over when I start to tell them why women have their right, and when I win them over and they are shocked, you tell them that you men do not know because you men have lived a nice life, because you are very well off, because thanks to life, nothing has happened to you and you can say oh, don’t criticize us, you don’t know. You don’t know what each one of these women has lived, the humiliations that she has lived through, the pain that she has lived through, the anger, the frustration that was destroying, because you are destroyed. Why—the despair, the impotence that there are laws such that you cannot choose for yourself and that makes the pain deeper, the despair is deeper, the impotence is deeper, that you cannot even choose for yourself in your life, that you are going to be destroyed forever. And I don’t let people say things like that, Why do you not agree? Because I agree how your life has been, and I make them change their minds when I tell them my story, what I have lived.

And it was not only in the street that I was attacked. My own family was also attacked, because I told you that I was studying, then I was studying in my own family. When I went with my family to visit them, there was a meeting. I went and they said to me, Look, there comes Imelda, the loser. Imagine how I was feeling. Or what they were saying in the street. People were shouting at me, Oh, look at the son from Molé! [many dicks]

You know what? I didn’t know what that meant. I was asking, Why are they pointing to my son, saying that he was the son from Molé? Until one day, I asked, Why are they calling my son this? I asked a woman neighbor on the block, who was saying, Thing is he is your son, he’s the son of many chiles [dicks]. You don’t know how much that hurt me, all this made me want to hit that woman.

Why? Because there are no laws that protect me, because there are no laws that protect a woman so she has the right to choose not to receive these humiliations. Apart from the first humiliation, which is that you are raped by many men who do not respect you, who treat you like a no good, and then you carry people’s reproaches with you all your life, with people’s criticism. With the attacks of ignorant people who do not know what you have lived through.

Michelle Xai: And this is part of what, in this society, when a woman is raped, when a woman is forced to be a mother, because this is what happens to you and to a lot of people. This is from this phrase, “Forced Motherhood Is Female Enslavement,” which means being a forced mother is the same as slavery. This is the slavery of women.

This is what your story means. When all that is happening in society and the way many people are also trained by the church. Because those beliefs make you think that all this was the woman’s fault. That all this is her fault and all the things that you are describing, the humiliations.

They were telling you, they were telling your son... all this is what we have to change. And part of what your story is, but also the story of many people who have lived through the same thing as you. It’s true that they have been, as you described, destroyed. Your life has been destroyed by something, like not having something as basic as the right to abortion.

And well, at this point, this is what we are fighting for here in New York. We are mobilizing people to take to the streets. To say, Enough is enough. And to demand that the Supreme Court not take away this right, because at this point, we still have this right, but it is under so many attacks and there is a fascist movement that at the end of the day, what they want is control over woman’s bodies. This has nothing to do with, as they say, the life of babies. Because they erase the lives of women. Like your life. Like the lives of millions of other people.

I wanted to ask you. This February, at the end of this month, you are going to come from Texas to New York and pass through these streets with us and I wanted to ask you, Why do you think that at this point, you are coming from Texas to New York to tell your story? Why do you think this is something important to do right now?

Araceli Herrera: I think it’s very important because people are going to hear my story. They are going to hear how I was impacted by absurd laws. How I was affected. They condemned me all my life to follow a life that I didn’t want, to not follow my dreams, that I wanted to be a professional, that I wanted to study, that I would have been a happy woman in my own country as family and stuff.

And that is why I want many women to hear this. For the people who say that this is no good, Why they need to understand. Why we do have the right to choose. So that other women hear our stories, see what you suffer your whole life because of laws that really do not defend the rights of women. That is why I want many women to hear me, those who are in favor and those who are against.

I want them to hear me, because right now, I said that I was going and I am, compañera. I have told them that I am going to go and some have told me that the issue is already over with. And that is why I want to go. I want to go tell my story. The first time, I understood that it had a big impact, and I want to have a bigger impact, raise awareness and that the very judges in the court hear my story and see how they condemned me, and that they shouldn’t continue doing this, that they should not continue condemning other women, that should not continue enslaving us, not continue those laws that don’t favor us.

We need justice and laws that are for us, that are on our side and not to take away this right.

Michelle Xai: This is something real important, what is being said. And especially this point of shocking other people whether they are for or against this. They need to hear this and more than anything those who are for and who at this point are silent, they have to break this silence and we have to get off of that.

Araceli Herrera: Yes, that’s right.

Michelle Xai: And on this show is where we are going to post your story. The show’s title is Revolution, Nothing Less!—where we talk about the need for a revolution and we are organizing for this.

And well, we follow the leadership of the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian and he gave a talk many years ago. He used a phrase where he says, Imagine getting to a world where all women can walk down the street and look men straight in the eye and not feel afraid. Not feel afraid that she might be raped, or that she might be sexually assaulted or brutalized. What do you think about that?

Araceli Herrera: I think this is how it should be. This is the way it should be. Women should be free. Women must stop this. Like right now, we are fighting internationally for Convention 190 [Violence and Harassment Convention, International Labor Organization]. We have a federation, the International Domestic Workers Federation. We are fighting for Convention 190 so as not to be harassed at work, not to be raped, and not only with acts, but also with words.

So, for this reason, I totally agree that he [BA] is right, that we should be able to walk down the street, and also when we’re married, if we have a partner, they shouldn’t be able mistreat us this way because you’re getting married and it seems like you become property. It’s as if you were a thing, not a human being, not a woman. You become the property of that person, and we have to say, Well, I am going to get married, but we are going to be equal. He is not more and she is not less as man and as woman, because we both have this right and this is what it should be like to walk with peace of mind or live life, or be at work, or be wherever, but neither above nor below but on equal level WITH our rights.

Michelle Xai: And this is something very important. Well, one last question, what is a message that you want people to hear? What do people need to know right now? What do you want to say to them?

Araceli Herrera: I want to say to people that women have rights and that women are not worth less than men and that the laws must really support us and that machismo must be stopped, the laws must be stopped, and I’m saying to women when they have a political office, I telling you women, You as women are not making laws for women, you as women do not protect the very women who are like you. So my message is this: We have rights and the laws must be for us, machismo has to stop, and inequality has to stop, and we should be respected as equals.

Michelle Xai: Well, thank you very much for this interview. I am very excited to meet you at the end of this month and go out on the streets together. We are going to impact and we are going to call on all those people who have to go out into the streets.

Araceli Herrera: And we are going to do this and this is because right is on our side. For this reason we are going to win, because we are right.

Michelle Xai: Well, thank you very much

Araceli Herrera: You’re welcome.