The Oath | Translation

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Translated by MC Editorial

[Daniel Alarcón]: This is Radio Ambulante, I’m Daniel Alarcón. 

Today we begin in Mexico with two sisters: Julia and Maya.

This is Julia.

[Julia]: We’ve always been thick as thieves. I mean, she says she’s my twin, a year and eight months older, but still, that she’s my twin.  

[Daniel]: And this is Maya. 

[Maya]: Let’s just say we were always very, very close. Sometimes she was interested in a lot of things that interested me, or she might question things that I questioned. We lived the same reality, or a very similar one.

[Daniel]: And that reality looked good more than a decade ago, when Julia and Maya were 14 and 15. They were just beginning to meet people, discover hobbies, and create their identities.

But this story isn’t about a conventional adolescence. The two sisters were curious as so many young people are, with a desire to take in the world. But they ended up doing almost the opposite—locking themselves in a bubble without ever meaning to.

They both remember the moment everything changed. They didn’t experience it together, it wasn’t at the same time, but their experiences were almost identical.

Julia and Maya were taken to a house, not really knowing what awaited them.

[Julia]: So, well, we go in. I see someone else there, I greet her, but instead of saying, “Come in, come in,” they take me into a bathroom.

[Maya]: And just like that, she locked me in the bathroom and told me to go change. Because I was supposed to put on my uniform. 

[Julia]: A black skirt, white shirt, stockings, black shoes…

[Maya]: And she asked me to pray the rosary…

[Julia]: And I figured, “Okay, I’ll pray.” I could hear the sounds of things moving and people arriving.  

[Daniel]: The two waited until finally a woman came to get them.

[Julia]: She takes me somewhere in the house where I assume the living room was. Everything was dark. 

[Maya]: They close the curtains, everything is dark. A table was set up like in front, and all the ceremonial things were on that table. 

[Julia]: On the table there were two lit candles at the ends, in the center there was an anvil [yunque]. 

[Maya]: An image of the Pope, the Virgin of Guadalupe, a crucifix, a rosary.

[Daniel]: Julia and Maya recall another thing in common about their experience. Behind the table were two young women, one of whom was in charge of leading the ceremony. Closer to them were other women, none of them over 21. They all wore uniforms and faced the altar in silence. Then the young woman tapped the table three times… and began to read from a sheet of paper. 

[Maya]: Like a well-established script, where it says that you’re there to fight for Christ’s kingdom, that you will be asked for primacy, you will be asked for confidentiality, you will be asked for discipline. 

[Daniel]: The woman gave them a piece of paper and asked them to read it silently. They found out for the first time that they would have to use pseudonyms. 

[Julia]: Then they asked me, “Did you understand? Do you agree?” And I said yes, of course, because I didn’t really get it. 

[Daniel]: Then they were ordered to extend their hands and read aloud something like this.

[Maya/Julia]: I swear by God and by my honor as a Christian woman that I will fight for Christ’s kingdom and that I will not reveal anything about the organization.

[Daniel]: Then one of the girls brought out a bottle of sherry and some small glasses. They all toasted, very stiff, like soldiers, feet together and eyes straight ahead, and drank. The leader tapped the table three times again, and they broke formation with a click of their heels on the floor.

And when the curtains finally opened, the two sisters knew there was no turning back.

Julia and Maya joined an organization known as El Yunque. It was founded in Mexico in 1953 by a group of Catholic university students who wanted to oppose what they saw as a conspiracy of Judaism, Freemasonry, and Communism.

Since then, El Yunque has changed a lot. From what is known, it has largely shed antisemitism. But it still maintains one of its main features—confidentiality. It demands discretion from its members, and this makes it difficult to define its size, characteristics, and specific activities. We know that the Catholic Church is aware of its existence. We know that in Mexico, several of its members have held positions in state and federal governments. We also know that it has spread to some Latin American countries and that it has been linked to far-right groups, such as the Vox political party in Spain.

A year ago, our sister podcast, El Hilo, released an episode about this subject. A few days later, Julia wrote to us. This is not her real name. Nor is Maya’s. We have also changed their voices and omitted some details of their testimonies to protect their identity and that of their families.

Julia told us that she was an activist in the women’s wing of El Yunque and that she wanted to break the silence she has endured since taking her oath of membership. So we spoke with her and then with her sister, Maya. Their stories are an insight into the ways they were indoctrinated as youth militants. The main thing they were taught was that they would be the leaders of society in the future. But for this, they would first have to sacrifice much of their teenage years and of who they were. 

Their story after a break. 

[Daniel]: We’re back with Radio Ambulante. Our producer Pablo Argüelles picks up the story. 

[Pablo Argüelles]: Julia and Maya were born and raised within El Yunque’s sphere of influence.

Their father had been active in the organization since they were young, and at work, he socialized with other members. This wasn’t a secret at home. Sometimes he spoke about it, though he never gave details. He was discreet.

Their mother wasn’t affiliated with the organization. But Julia remembers that she would sometimes make veiled comments, such as, “Your father and his groups,” or “Your father and his work.”

Sometimes Julia and Maya would also hear their parents arguing and mentioning El Yunque.

But this didn’t happen just at home. Their mother held a position in Mexico’s traditional right-wing party, the PAN. And sometimes, when Julia accompanied her on a campaign, she remembers that other people in the party would speak about El Yunque with suspicion, even rejection, asking if a particular candidate was a Yunquista, or if they intended to take over the party.

So from a very young age, both Julia and Maya heard about a group of people to which their parents were connected in one way or another. A group that was capable of opening or closing doors to educational, work, and political opportunities for them.

So El Yunque was close to them, but it was also invisible. It mingled inevitably with the rest of their lives, so marked by Catholicism at the time. Their father and grandfather were very devout, their school was Catholic, and you could say that their city was, also.

So, as they entered their teens, without their even expecting it, their process of joining El Yunque began.

Their older sister, who was already in the organization and attending college at the time, began inviting them to meetings.

These were weekly gatherings at the homes of some of her friends. Only women attended, never more than six or seven. The oldest were 19 or 20. They sat in the living or dining room… and talked.

[Maya]: And they talk about the civic-political vocation, the vocation to act in society, to make changes in society, blah blah blah.

[Julia]: As if they were selling you the idea of “we want to change things, we want to, like, build community.”

[Maya]: The importance of social action was discussed. The characteristics of leaders were discussed. 

[Pablo]: And although they were never told what organization was behind these gatherings, they both sensed it was El Yunque. In any case, they didn’t give it much thought; they were simply drawn to the idea of being among sisters, getting out of the house, and meeting people, even though the meetings could be boring and they would have to pray and exercise in the park. But when they didn’t feel like going, their sister would say:

[Julia]: “No, no, come on, come on, come on. It’s just a little while. You promised to go, so how can you skip it?”

[Pablo]: And sometimes their mother would encourage them, too. 

[Maya]: “Why don’t you go? Go, it’s something that your father… and so on,” yeah, yeah, I mean, I remember those words like, “It’s something that has always supported your father,” and even my mother told me, “Look, they have always supported your father regarding work.”

[Pablo]: The mother would not participate in this episode, but I spoke with her, and she confirmed what we just heard. She also told me that she didn’t see anything wrong with these meetings at the time. They were an educational opportunity for her daughters, a bit like doing community service. And she also knew her daughters’ friends, even their families. They weren’t complete strangers.

Meanwhile, at the meetings, Julia and Maya were told they might belong to a select group.

[Maya]: They try to make you feel like, “You’re special, aren’t you? You’re not like the rest. And you don’t behave like the worldly people out there. You behave like a good Catholic.”

[Pablo]: And precisely because of this, they had a responsibility to change the world, even though no one really explained how.

During this part of the membership process, candidates were evaluated, unknowingly, by other members called affiliate recruiters, who looked for leadership skills, attractive personalities, and Catholic virtues. If, after a few months of observation, the Yunque Admissions Committee determined that a candidate fit the profile, they approved her entry and then extended a formal invitation.

Maya’s invitation came when she was 15. She told me that one of the girls she attended meetings with invited her, but it wasn’t such a memorable moment. She says she didn’t really know what to expect, so she accepted without much thought.

Julia’s invitation, on the other hand, had a bigger impact on her. It came a few months after Maya’s, and shortly after she turned 14. She remembers one Friday afternoon when her older sister asked to meet with her at the university she attended.

[Julia]: And I was very nervous, very, very nervous because I knew what was coming. I didn’t know exactly what, but I knew I was going to get the invitation.

[Pablo]: Julia was inclined to say no because of everything she had heard about El Yunque since she was a little girl: That it was a group involved in politics, that it could make her life easy or difficult.  

[Julia]: Yes. My intuition was telling me, “Oh no…”  

[Pablo]: But at the same time, she thought…

[Julia]: Well, my recruiter is my sister, and well, she’s there for a reason. I kind of trust her judgment.

[Pablo]: So the two of them went to Mass, and then, at dusk, they sat on a bench near the center of town. There, the sister told her.

[Julia]: “Listen, what we’ve seen in the meetings is that the world is in a very bad state; there are a lot of things that need to change. And there’s a youth organization that’s trying to do just that, with God’s help… so that we can have political influence, not just talk among ourselves.”

[Pablo]: Julia remembers that the scene felt artificial, as if it weren’t her sister talking to her, but a recruiter following a script. But that script made no direct mention of El Yunque. 

[Julia]: Because that’s no longer the official name. The official name is Organización del Bien Común [Organization for the Common Good]. So I said to her, “Look, don’t beat around the bush. I know what you’re talking about is El Yunque.” 

[Pablo]: Her sister confirmed this. Julia expressed her doubts. Why join if they knew the organization had a bad reputation? But her sister replied that, after all, they shared many values with El Yunque. And then she added this: 

[Julia]: Why not change the organization from within?

[Pablo]: I mean, yes. El Yunque wasn’t a perfect organization. But if they got involved, perhaps they would be the ones who could improve it from within. And besides, the important thing was the possibility that, with El Yunque, they could change what was wrong in the world.

Julia remembers that these arguments disarmed her. And her sister continued with the script. She told her that if she accepted, she would have to be discreet and that El Yunque would become a priority commitment.

Julia’s older sister would not participate in this episode, so we don’t know what her motivations were for joining. But Julia has a hypothesis. 

[Julia]: So that there were no… no secrets between us, so that we could share more things. I mean, it was based a lot on, well, yes, a lot of love, and being together, and sharing something that’s sold to you as something really good. 

[Pablo]: In the end, the older sister told Julia that her other sister, Maya, was already part of the organization. This convinced her.

Julia accepted, and her older sister invited her the next day to a ceremony to celebrate her entry. But she didn’t give her any further details. Remember, one of the pillars of El Yunque was confidentiality. 

[Julia]: They can’t describe things to you, they can’t tell you what to expect. So, that uncertainty of “Oh, what’s going to happen?” creates a lot of anxiety. 

[Pablo]: The ceremony turned out to be the initiation rite Julia and Maya experienced, which we heard about at the beginning of this story.

From that moment on, all of El Yunque’s activities began to feel like a test, as if the oaths hadn’t been enough and Julia and Maya had to prove their worth as militants over and over again.

They both remember a test called the Preliminary. One weekend, shortly after joining, and again without knowing what would happen, Julia and Maya boarded a bus headed to a house in the countryside. This time they were together, with other girls, mostly between 16 and 20 years old. But the atmosphere wasn’t joyful. Here’s Maya. 

[Maya]: They don’t even let you open the curtains. And they keep you praying the whole time.

[Pablo]: At one point during that trip, one of the women in charge of maintaining discipline warned them of a suspicious situation. 

[Julia]: Apparently, someone was watching us in the parking lot. We don’t know if they’re following us or not, there seem to be security issues, I hope there hasn’t been any mistake.

[Pablo]: That is, someone might have been indiscreet and told an outsider about the trip. The atmosphere became even more tense. When they came to the house, in a very isolated location, they were again told that there were security problems, that someone had apparently followed them there. So they were introduced to a priest and two men in charge of looking after them along with other people who were guarding the perimeter. Then the girls were taken to a dusty field. And there, after noon, they were made to exercise. 

[Maya]: And you’re always listening to the person in charge of discipline yelling at you, “Run and run. Hurry up, ladies,” and things like that.

[Julia]: Why can you not discipline your body? Why didn’t you run fast enough? How can you sacrifice so little if you’re serving God? God doesn’t get crumbs.

[Pablo]: And so they continued, without food or rest, until nightfall. They were forbidden to eat dinner, with the argument that they should offer that food to God. And when it was time for bed, the discipline officer insisted that there were security issues. 

[Julia]: It’s a bit psychotic. We are all very uncomfortable, very tired, hungry, and on top of the fear, it’s nighttime.

[Pablo]: So they were ordered to lie down in their sleeping bags in the living room, closest to the door, with their shoes handy in case they had to run away. The lights were turned off. 

[Julia]: And I start hearing noises outside. So I’m like, what’s up? I mean, something’s happening, but I’m not reacting well yet. And then they come in. 

[Pablo]: The door swung open. There were about five men. Some were carrying sticks, others were wearing face masks. And they were shouting.

[Julia]: “Motherfuckers, you’ll see what we’re going to do to you.”

[Maya]: We hear what sounds like a gunshot, but it’s more like fireworks than anything else. And they run away. And they turn on the light and blow the whistle. 

[Pablo]: At that moment, it was clear that it had all been a sham, and that it came with a message: Evil is always lurking. 

[Maya]: That’s when they tell you how do you dare to live a single day of your life without being in a state of grace. 

[Pablo]: That is, without confessing. So at that point, the priest confessed those who wanted to. And they all spent the rest of the night praying. The next morning they exercised again, and then ate water and lentils for breakfast. It was a less tiring day. 

[Maya]: So, then you start to have a good time. And you come back with a sense of connection with the people you experienced it with. I mean, it becomes like another memory, another anecdote. It becomes something you share with someone. 

[Pablo]: Julia returned from the Preliminary proud of having passed the test. She felt different. 

[Julia]: My change wasn’t negative against the organization; in fact, it was a reinforcement. I mean, I felt like I had changed a lot, like I had understood many more things. I had definitely reaffirmed this part of myself, like sacrificing, putting my life at the service of certain ideals. 

[Pablo]: But over time, El Yunque started to ask more and more sacrifices from them. And then those ideals that had attracted them in the beginning would become harder to defend… 

[Daniel]: We’ll be back after a break. 

[Daniel]: We’re back with Radio Ambulante. Pablo Argüelles continues the story. 

[Pablo]: As the months went on, Julia and Maya’s lives at El Yunque began to follow a predictable course.

The core of their activism was the weekly meetings they held with a small group of fellow members, headed by a leader. It was at these meetings, which always began with three taps on the table and the invocation “God, Country, Organization,” that Julia and Maya began to better understand what El Yunque was all about and what distinguished its members from other Catholics. Maya explains it this way: 

[Maya]: You have your characteristics, your obligations as a good Christian, the practice of charity: Yes. But the Organization for the Common Good isn’t engaged in feeding people. The Organization for the Common Good isn’t engaged in giving clothes to those who have nothing to wear.

[Pablo]: What they were taught was that the organization sought to transform reality by taking over strategic positions in politics, the business world, and schools and universities.

The success of this mission depended on all members, including the youth, submitting to the three pillars mentioned earlier: primacy, confidentiality, and discipline.

Primacy required militants to give priority to El Yunque activities. 

[Maya]: “But it’s my mother’s birthday.” Okay, but you’re not prioritizing the organization. Because this is more important; it’s for the salvation of souls. 

[Pablo]: The second pillar, as we mentioned, was confidentiality. Julia told me there was a lot of insistence on the organization’s being discreet.  

[Julia]: Because the Catholic Church supposedly does not allow secret societies. So it’s emphasized that it’s not secret, but discreet. 

[Pablo]: And the last was discipline, which encompassed everything from punctuality and physical and mental resilience to obedience. In fact, one of the maxims of El Yunque was “One who obeys never errs.”

[Maya]: The organization also emphasizes a combative aspect. We are combative.

[Pablo]: Combative in the classroom, in business, and in politics. Combative against Freemasonry, liberation theology, Marxism, and Communism, all promoters of what the organization called the “culture of death.” 

[Maya]: The issue of abortion, the issue of addiction, the issue of the LGBT community… It’s a struggle between the culture of life and the culture of death.

[Julia]: So why is homosexuality wrong? Because your romantic relationships must be open to life. The fact that you can’t reproduce with someone of the same sex means you’re not open to life. That’s why abortion is wrong. That’s why contraception is wrong, too. 

[Pablo]: Julia told me that some of these teachings did bother her. For example, she didn’t see anything wrong with same-sex marriage.

[Julia]: So I was like, “But if they’re starting from love, and religion is about love and God, love one another, why would a relationship based on love be wrong?”

[Pablo]: But she silenced those thoughts. And so did Maya. This was part of their preparation. There was a reason they were told so often that phrase, “One who obeys never errs.” It was part of getting ready for a transcendent mission, one that went far beyond adolescence. It was a life mission.   

[Maya]: So that once you’re truly involved in something, once you’re part of society, once you have a job, a political position, wherever you are, you can put up a good fight.

[Pablo]: So each month they paid a fee of about $5 dollars, which they drew from their savings and from selling cookies at school. They attended courses on a wide range of subjects, from public speaking to the mechanism of the Mexican political system. To nurture their nationalism, they studied Mexican history, which was taught to them as an epic story that began when the Spanish brought European civilization and the Catholic religion to a land of inhabitants immersed in the Stone Age.

They were the heirs of that epic story. To remind them of this, militants who already held positions in the media or politics came to give lectures. Maya remembers that one day a representative from the Vatican visited them. 

[Maya]: They asked us to take off our uniforms, meaning we weren’t supposed to mention anything about the organization. Even though he was part of a course of the organization. 

[Pablo]: They also learned that El Yunque was present in Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, the United States, France, and Spain. 

[Julia]: That makes you believe that, “Yes, it’s true that these are people with a lot of power.” So it makes you somehow fearful, but it also makes you think, “Things really are achieved here, there is power to transform reality.” 

[Pablo]: And as youth activists, they could begin to transform their own realities in various ways. One of their tasks was to inform El Yunque about what was happening in their schools. Maya gave me an example: 

[Maya]: My math teacher talked about abortion today and possibly has a pro-abortion stance. My teacher’s name is so-and-so, and he works at such-and-such a school. Now that I think about It, I realize it was dangerous. Because that could lead to… well, if it turned out that someone in the organization held a position of power at that school, that math teacher could lose his job. 

[Pablo]: But her most important task was recruiting more people. At least one a year. 

[Maya]: Your task is to win souls. Your task is to add souls for Christ’s social kingdom. Of course, that makes you feel and think differently about things. 

[Pablo]: Things like, you’ve truly been chosen over other Catholics. And that was precisely why you couldn’t win over just anyone. As we said, the affiliation recruiters had to monitor their candidates carefully. They even attended a course just on recruiting new members. Julia recalls a ceremony where she wrote the names of the people she wanted to recruit on a slip of paper.

[Julia]: We went one by one, we approached the main table or that sort of altar, and there was a little basket. And then we said something like, “I promise to recruit three people,” and you put the little piece of paper there. I knew I was lying, and coming out that course, I thought, “I just don’t want to do this to people, to my friends. No, I don’t want them to really experience this. And I don’t want them to resent me if they don’t like it in the end.”

[Pablo]: Maya felt something similar. But there was a lot of pressure, and the leaders reminded her of it constantly. 

[Maya]: It was torture because they’re constantly insisting on the number of people you’re going to recruit and how long it will take.

[Pablo]: And actually, the Yunque youth team in which Julia and Maya served was quite inbred.

[Maya]: That was something I had noticed, and I said, “The majority, the vast majority of us who are here, are here because our families are in the organization.” It was very hard for those who were members and had nothing to do with the organization before, to join or last long in the organization.

[Pablo]: Maya told me that in their courses, the instructors would sometimes insist they needed new people. But how many new schools and new families do you have access to if you’re a teenager around 15? Gaining new souls back could be very difficult. Julia once tried to recruit one of her best friends from school. 

[Julia]: And she had a kind of, I don’t know if I should put it that way, but more of a liberal lifestyle. And I was determined to sign her up even though she didn’t fit the profile. I mean, she didn’t fit the profile. I just want her to be here with me so I can tell her more.

[Pablo]: But her efforts led nowhere. It was difficult to match their realities inside and outside of her militancy. In fact, as the months went by, Julia began to feel that she was living a double life. In one, she was simply Julia, empathetic and playful, in her early teen years, beginning to discover new emotions and experiences. 

But the Julia from El Yunque was much more shy and passive, with the constant fear of not being good enough, of not fulfilling all of the organization’s obligations. She remembers it as a time of great loneliness—first, because her parents argued a lot at home and that affected her; but also because at school she couldn’t talk to her friends about El Yunque; and there were hardly any people her age at El Yunque. Maya’s experience was similar.

[Maya]: You live in a bubble, but you also build your own bubble. It’s a sort of isolation. Not total isolation, of course. But you begin to think that other people are different, and you even start to question who you should and shouldn’t hang out with. This sense of moral superiority begins to develop. And then you start to reject many, many other ways of life, many other ways of thinking, and you start to categorize them as good and bad. 

[Pablo]: But at El Yunque, if you were a woman, that sense of superiority had its limits. Female activists took several courses on the role women should play in the organization and the world. 

[Julia]: The justification behind our roles as housewives, as mothers exercising motherhood, is that it was a way to fight because in the end you were educating others. 

[Maya]: It was like a class in good manners for us. I mean, how to be a young lady, how to be a Christian lady, how to be a good wife, how to be a good woman, how—It was terrible for me, sitting there having to learn how to peel a banana with a knife and fork and thinking, “What are they teaching the men right now while they keep us here?” 

[Pablo]: These kinds of questioning began to accumulate. At 15, Julia spent two weeks at a retreat home with about 60 course mates, some from other countries. They were divided into teams, and Julia remembers meeting a girl on her team. 

[Julia]: And we talked about doubts and we talked things that worried us, things we liked. I mean, we talked and talked. So I felt a very, very strong connection to her, and one night when we were supposed to be asleep, we stayed up talking…

[Pablo]: Outside the cabin where they slept.

[Julia]: I told her where I was from and told her my real name, and she told me where she was from and gave me her real name. And… we were namesakes.

[Pablo]: It was a beautiful moment. But Julia says someone inside the cabin heard them talking. So the next day, one of the discipline officers transferred them to another cabin and group.

That weekend, the girls were taken to an uninhabited mountain. And on the slope, they began exercising. At dusk, they gathered around a large campfire and were divided into two teams to play “capture the flag.”

The game is simple: each team receives three balls and must prevent their opponents from stealing them. There are also players who are like police officers and have the power to catch their opponents and take them to “jail.” 

[Julia]: We starting to notice that there were girls who were taking it very seriously.

[Pablo]: They were getting more aggressive, pushing each other, yelling at each other. 

[Julia]: It felt like more than just a game. Much more intense, much more like an imposition.

[Pablo]: After what felt like an eternity, Julia was caught and taken to jail. There she saw her leader, the one from the meetings, who was no more than 19 years old. 

[Julia]: And I see her curled up on the floor, with her head between her knees, falling asleep. So I go up to her and say, “Hey, are you okay? Do you need anything?” And she said, “No, no, no, I’m just tired.” And it was a shock for me, like, we’re all tired, and you’re here and already falling asleep. What’s up? I mean, we’re all supposed to be contributing.

[Pablo]: And when another friend arrived to rescue them, the leader wouldn’t leave.

[Julia]: At the time I was like, “No, it’s not fair, I don’t know, why would she do that?” And now I realize, “The poor thing, we were all suffering so much.”

[Pablo]: After the game, they spent the rest of the night by the campfire, trying to keep it going. They didn’t even have sleeping bags. 

And the next day, back at the retreat home, the discipline officer told them that the whole point of the camp had been to push them to the limit so they would understand their own weaknesses. Something similar to what they’d experienced in the Preliminary. At the time, Julia felt convinced. But not so much now… 

[Julia]: I realized that none of what they said about generosity, about solidarity, your comrade and sister in struggles—that made no sense. It was as if when the time comes, everyone only looks out for themselves. And that was like a short circuit for me, saying that’s not a bad thing. I mean, it’s not bad for everyone to look out for themselves. So this sense of togetherness is based on something very wrong, because we can’t all sacrifice the same thing or the same amount.

​​[Daniel]: We’ll be right back.

[Daniel]: We’re back. Pablo continues with the story.

[Pablo]: Julia came back from camp disappointed. But she didn’t say anything at home. There wasn’t much room for her to vent there either. She barely spoke to her parents and older sister about her experiences in El Yunque. In fact, Maya was the only one she felt comfortable talking to.

[Maya]: We shared our disagreements, shared our anger, shared our questioning.

[Julia]: Someone else is having doubts. I mean, I’m not the only one; someone else is seeing the flaws in this.

[Maya]: This issue of obedience, we questioned this issue of hierarchy a lot. And that made us say, no this doesn’t work, this isn’t useful.

[Pablo]: And while it was relatively easy for them to identify what wasn’t working, it was much harder to admit that perhaps, behind the questions that kept coming up, what they really wanted was to break the bond that tied them to the Yunque. 

[Julia]: Of course I wanted it to break, but I wasn’t that conscious of it. I mean, I didn’t want to say it out loud or so clearly to myself, like, “Okay, you’re going to leave.” 

[Pablo]: The doubts went on for months. Because maybe, they thought, in the end, everything wasn’t so bad. At El Yunque, there were people they loved and with whom they shared a sense of belonging. And they’d also been told that this was their calling. And that’s why the mere thought of a break up could fill them with guilt. 

[Julia]: It was a huge internal conflict, a huge, huge one. I knew the day of the meeting was approaching and my stomach was in knots, like, “Yes, I’m going, I’m not going, yes, I’m going, I’m not going, I don’t know what to do, I don’t want to.”

[Maya]: Well… but… What if God really wants this? I’m not having a good time, but maybe God wants me to offer that. Maybe God wants me to try hard, maybe, so that’s what kept me from leaving. 

[Julia]: Because they also sell you a lot on the idea that there are passive people. There are people who came in and then left or gave up, but you can’t leave. You took an oath. So you never really stop being part of it. 

[Pablo]: When Julia started making excuses for missing meetings, her older sister, her recruiter, began asking her what was going on.

[Julia]: I didn’t give her a lot of explanations. Really. Until there came a point where I told her, I have so many doubts and no one, no one, answers them. And I also said, you told me things could be changed from within, but nothing can be changed.

[Pablo]: Her sister didn’t answer… Shortly afterwards, Julia stopped attending meetings and courses altogether. Her leader asked to see her. 

[Julia]: And I told her that the civic-political vocation, the feeling like we’re the chosen ones, that not just anyone can join—that doesn’t, no, no, it doesn’t square up for me. And I said, “And all that part about you and I being less than them, less than men…” I said, “That’s enough for me.”

[Pablo]: Her leader asked her to write a letter explaining her reasons for resigning, but Julia never did. She simply… left that world. That was a little over two years after she had joined. And no one at home questioned her decision, not her parents, not her sister, not Maya. 

[Maya]: In fact, I think in some ways it made me question myself more. 

[Pablo]: She began to investigate the meaning of vocation and whether belonging to El Yunque could be considered just that, a calling from God.

[Maya]: To have reasons, in my opinion, to be able to say it’s not a bad thing if I leave. I mean, it was also like trying to justify my departure. What I concluded was that if we really wanted to make a change in society, it was about getting involved in community kitchens, in… I don’t know, really about making an impact and making a difference in the environment, in people’s lives, not about secret meetings or discreet meetings, or reserved, confidential meetings. 

[Pablo]: In one course, Maya began to rebel over small things…

[Maya]: Changing rooms, having sleepovers without anyone noticing, hiding food—not because I was hungry. But I wanted to do forbidden things. 

[Pablo]: And then during the meetings, too. One day, her leader said that these meetings were sacramental; that is, they had the power to heal the soul and cleanse less serious sins. Kind of like what holy water does, or a blessing. That’s when Maya exploded.

[Maya]: I told the leader directly, “What you’re doing is sacrilege.” “No, of course it is, and this and that, and blah blah blah.” I went to the next meeting. I said, look, I have researched this, this, this, this, this, and this. And this. And look how dangerous it is for you to be saying what you are saying. 

[Pablo]: Because she was distorting Catholic doctrine, attributing to the Yunque meetings a power they did not have. And so, Maya stopped attending the meetings when she was about twenty.

[Maya]: If I hadn’t stopped going, I think they would have started dismissing me or trying to contain me. So I got fed up and didn’t go back. It was like, this is it. No more.

[Pablo]: It’s been over ten years since Julia and Maya left the Yunque youth wing. Although you might think they were active for a very short time, the after-effects of those years still haunt them. María often talks about it with friends who are also former militants. 

[Maya]: And why is it that every time we get together, we realize something new, something we say, “Wow, I haven’t seen that way before?” Sometimes it even scares me to think of the things I haven’t realized yet about it. 

[Pablo]: And many things that they considered “normal” until just a few years ago, aren’t so normal now. Julia gave me an example. 

[Julia]: One thing I absorbed a lot, a lot—and it’s something I still struggle with—is the subjugation of the body, the sacrifice of the body, or the punishment of the body. I mean, I can endure being uncomfortable for a very long time.

[Pablo]: She also tends to give up her time and prioritize what others want. It’s as if she still follows the mandates of primacy and discipline. 

But it’s not just that a part of El Yunque still accompanies Julia and Maya. They’ve also spent years trying to rediscover the most intimate parts of their identities, the ones they feel they had to silence during their activism.

In this regard, Julia told me a story. About a year after leaving El Yunque, she began to notice that one of her classmates seemed very sad at school. It was obvious something was happening to her. Until one day, it all came out. 

[Julia]: She started crying and crying and crying. I asked her, “What’s wrong? Are you okay, do you need anything?” And so on. And so, at that point, she told all of us…

[Pablo]: She told them that her cousin had gotten pregnant and didn’t want to keep the baby. So she asked for help getting an abortion. But she told her cousin she couldn’t do it because she didn’t agree. So her cousin did everything on her own. She had a clandestine abortion and died in the process. 

[Julia]: So, of course, she regretted it deeply. She was in a very intense state of grief. And so, for me, it was a very powerful moment, seeing all that pain. It had also been due to her ultra-Catholic, ultra-religious beliefs. And now, she was sort of rethinking them. She said, “Who am I to have told my cousin that it was wrong?” “How could I do that?” So, that shocked me because it was like… who are we hurting so much by having such strong opinions? Whether they’re right or wrong, it’s the lack of empathy that they lead you to, and they lead you to not being there for people in very difficult times. People you love.

[Pablo]: Julia didn’t know how to comfort her friend. But as she listened, she could feel herself empathizing with her and her feelings. For her, this is something she probably would not have allowed herself to feel if she had remained at El Yunque.

[Julia]: I would have probably said, “How sad, but it’s great that you refused,” I knew I would have been capable of doing the same thing. But now I’m incapable of doing that. And I don’t want to do that anymore. So yes, that was an important moment.

[Pablo]: At that moment, she realized she was getting back one of her most valuable traits: empathy. And although neither Julia nor Maya will ever be able to reclaim those teenage years they spent at El Yunque, they still have many more years to do with they as they please. Starting, perhaps, with talking.

[Daniel]: To learn more about how El Yunque works today, we recommend listening to the episode of El Hilo mentioned at the beginning of this story. You can find it at elhilo.audio.

Pablo Argüelles is a producer for Radio Ambulante and lives in Madrid. This story was edited by Camila Segura, David Trujillo, Luis Fernando Vargas, and me. Bruno Scelza fact-checked the content. The sound design is by Andrés Azpiri, with original music by Ana Tuirán.

The rest of the Radio Ambulante team includes Paola Alean, Adriana Bernal, Aneris Casassus, Diego Corzo, Emilia Erbetta, Melisa Rabanales, Natalia Ramírez, Elsa Liliana Ulloa, and Désiree Yépez.

Carolina Guerrero is the CEO. 

Radio Ambulante is a podcast of Radio Ambulante Estudios, produced and mixed on the Hindenburg PRO program.

If you enjoyed this episode and want us to continue doing independent journalism about Latin America, support us through Deambulantes, our membership program. Visit radioambulante.org/donar and help us continue narrating the region.

Radio Ambulante tells the stories of Latin America. I’m Daniel Alarcón. Thanks for listening.