On November 19, 2003, Teresa Méndez-Faith gave a talk called “To Love and Not to Live in Paraguay: a Personal Story, a Country’s History,” as part of Saint Anselm College’s International Faculty Lecture Series. Her talk ended with the words, “Sadly, my father, Epifanio Méndez Fleitas, died in exile in 1985 having never been permitted to return to his home country.”

On November 19, 2004, exactly a year later—to the hour—the end of the story changed. A funeral caravan carrying Epifanio’s remains began a three-day journey from Buenos Aires to the Paraguayan capital, with stops in his birthplace and other towns where he was honored. The event was blazoned across the national press; tributes and remembrances were published; bands played the songs he had composed.

As a college professor in the United States, Méndez-Faith believes she has found a way to continue her father’s mission.

“A good language teacher teaches the language in its cultural context,” she says. She also teaches Latin American literature, which she says, “is very much rooted in history and politics. We read, discuss and interpret texts as products of their historical, social, political and economic circumstances.” Many Paraguayan authors wrote in exile, and their works were the focus of her doctoral dissertation. The list of anthologies, dictionaries, textbooks and articles she has published is long.

Méndez-Faith likes to share her experiences with her students.

“Yo soy yo y mis circunstancias: I am myself and my circumstances,” she says, quoting the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset. “I have the advantage of being part of both the language and the culture that I teach. I carry this with me and I am an expression of it. I would like my students to respect and appreciate the culture that produced the language and literature they’re learning; to be aware of international issues which often appear as themes in literature; and if possible to become politically active and be part of the solution to the world’s problems.”

1 | 2 | 3 | 4