“This is how I know I will live posthumously”: oral testimonies from Almerinda Farias Gama, a pioneering figure in brazilian feminism

Abstract

The following article discusses two oral testimonies given by Almerinda Farias Gama (1899-1999), one of the chief feminist activists to lead the brazilian campaign for the female vote, in the early twentieth century. Not only was Almerinda part of the Brazilian Federation for Female Progress (FBPF), but she also founded and presided the Federal District's Syndicate of Women Typewriters and Shorthand Writers, in 1933. Throughout the 1980's, the octogenarian Almerinda remembered her trajectory in two distinct moments: in 1984, she gave an Oral History testimony to the researchers Angela de Castro Gomes and Eduardo Stotz; and, in 1989, Almerinda did the same to filmmaker Joel Zito Araújo. This article aims at analyzing how Almerinda attempted to answer to the memoration provocations proposed by each of the above cited projects and reflect about how present forces molded such testimonies which were, in a certain way, Almerinda's tools against forgetfulness.