They Make Us Dangerous

About the Book

THEY MAKE US DANGEROUS is a firsthand account of events in Bolivia from 1964 to 1980. When teaching as a Dominican nun in a Midwest parish school, Sister Ruth is asked to make a radical change. This eventually leads to doctoral research in Bolivia and the opening of a missionary house in La Paz. When Sister Ruth arrives in La Paz, she encounters shocking poverty but is instantly drawn to this mesmerizing and enchanting country. The Catholic Church is in the middle of profound changes, self-criticism and deep division within its ranks. Politics in Bolivia will bring deepen the divide between the liberal and conservative clergy. The country is also poised on the brink of radical change because Washington is waging a Cold War and Bolivia is about to become one of its battlefields. Through revolution and oppression, the new missionaries learn more than they imagined about the daily struggles and the political reality of this South American country. US foreign policy, driven by the interests of transnational corporations corrupts a succession of governments. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have a stranglehold on Bolivia’s economy and the austerity measures they force on the government translate into more poverty and unrest. But the military boot crushes dissent. Close friends and students become victims. Silence is not an option. The first part of the memoir follows the sisters as they teach, research, organize and most of all learn. The second part is a personal account of Sister Ruth’s life under the Banzer dictatorship and Bolivia’s convulsive return to democratic rule. The addendum to the book summarizes and updates events in Bolivia since 1980.

About the Author

The author was born in 1934 in Detroit, Michigan and entered the convent of Dominican sisters in Racine, Wisconsin in 1952. After teaching elementary school in Michigan and Wisconsin, she began doctoral studies in St. Louis University. In 1964, she traveled to La Paz, Bolivia to work on her dissertation in Latin American studies. The events in this book cover the years of personal and political transformation spent in Bolivia from 1964 until 1980. She now lives in San Francisco, California with her husband of more than thirty years.