The Life of Ignacio Martın-Baro:A Narrative Account of a Personal Biographical Journey

Nelson PortilloUniversidad Centroamericana, “Jose Simeon Canas” (UCA)

Ignacio Martın-Baro is celebrated in Latin America and beyond for his penetrating writingsabout psychology and social change and for his inspiring commitment to the oppressed ofthe world. The roots of both his great ingenuity and sensitivity are explored in this articlefrom the perspective of a personal journey taken by the author in preparation for afull-fledged biography about him. Although still a work in progress, the current essayprovides a detailed sketch of Martın-Baro’s life as informed by interviews with relatives,colleagues, and close friends as well as extensive reviews of archival material, includingMartın-Baro’s personal and family records. It sheds light on the intricate connectionsbetween vital experiences of Martın-Baro�s life and his thought and choices as a socialscientist. The impact of Martın-Baro’s life and his legacy on the author is also described.A photo collage that covers his life, since his childhood, accompanies this essay.

Keywords: El Salvador, Martın-Baro, Liberation Psychology, Jesuits

Ignacio Martın-Baro was one of the most bril-liant and provocative thinkers in psychology fromLatin America during the last quarter of the 20thcentury. Some consider him psychology�s ownversion of Che Guevara in light of his great lovefor an adoptive land and his immense devotion tothe people’s hunger for justice and liberation fromoppression. Beyond this parallel, Martın-Baro’slife and work reveal a man with clear ideas andcommitted ideals who conceived of psychology asa tool that could help to construct a new person in

a new society. This modest article presents a bio-graphical sketch of this notable social psycholo-gist and his work based on several interviews withrelatives, colleagues, and close friends as well asextensive reviews of archival material, includinghis personal and family records. This biographicalsketch is partially based on early works of Luis dela Corte Ibanez (2001), Roberto Martialay (1999),and Estudios Centroamericanos (ECA) as well.

Ignacio Martın-Baro:A Man With A Mission

Jose Ignacio Martın-Baro was born on Novem-ber 7, 1942, the fourth child of renowned writerand local chronicler Francisco J. Martın Abril andAlicia Baro, in Valladolid, the capital of Castileand Leon in northwestern Spain. Nacho (a typicalnickname for Ignacio) was marked early on by theSociety of Jesus (“Jesuits”) not only because heshared the name of the order’s founder, Ignatius ofLoyola, but also because he was educated by themduring part of his childhood.

Nacho was raised during the Spanish postcivilwar years by a rightwing-leaning and devotedCatholic family. His father, also known as Paco,was sympathetic to the Nationalist movement ofFrancisco Franco, Spain’s fascist, Catholic, andconservative dictator who ruled the country withan iron fist for 37 years. During the war, Pacoshowed his support by writing a romancero, abook of ballads (Martın Abril, 1937) for Franco’s

NELSON PORTILLO is a visiting professor in the Local Develop-ment Program of the Department of Sociology and Political Sci-ences at the University of Central America “Jose Simeon Canas”(UCA) in San Salvador. His main areas of research are youthviolence, community violence prevention programs, especiallyyouth mentoring initiatives, and history of psychology in El Sal-vador and Central America. He is also founder and editor of theSalvadoran Journal of Psychology and Regional Vice-Presidentfor Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean of the Interameri-can Psychological Society.

I THANK CARLOS MARTIN-BARO for providing me withpictures of the Martın-Baro family, and Suzanne Ouellette,Susane Opotow, Trina Portillo, and Rebecca Castellanos fortheir helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. I amalso indebted to several informants, in particular, CarlosMartın-Baro, Maritza Montero, Suzanne Ouellette, MiltonJ. Rosenberg, Amalio Blanco, and Adrianne Aron.

CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING THIS ARTICLE should beaddressed to Nelson Portillo, Universidad Centroamericana,“Jose Simeon Canas” (UCA), Departamento de Sociologıay Ciencias Polıticas, San Salvador, El Salvador. E-mail:nportillo@uca.edu.sv

Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology © 2012 American Psychological Association2012, Vol. 18, No. 1, 77–87 1078-1919/12/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0027066

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soldiers in which he exalted their heroism and theFranquist ideology. This political alignment wastroubling for Nacho and brought serious clashesbetween him and his family later on.

Nacho was not immune to the excessive con-servative influence of the Catholic Church duringthe Franco era. When Nacho was eight years old,he and a few of his classmates were dressed up infull costumes as powerful members of society in aseemingly innocuous school performance. Heplayed the role of a Catholic archbishop sur-rounded by other high-ranking members of theChurch, Franquist officers, and the petite bour-geoisie (a picture of this event is included at theend of this work). Although Nacho did not be-come an archbishop, he did go beyond role-playing as a priest and followed in the footsteps ofhis older and younger brothers Luis Alberto and

Carlos by entering the Jesuit order on Septem-ber 28, 1959, at the Novitiate of Orduna in Viz-caya. At the time, he was not yet 17 years old. Hisdecision took everyone by surprise, including thegirlfriend he left. Along with his sister Alicia, aCarmelite nun, Ignacio was the only one whostuck to his early chosen religious career. Hisbrothers later abandoned the path to priesthood.

From Orduna, Nacho was transferred toVillagarcıa de Campos, back in Valladolid, butvery soon had to pack again and was sent by hissuperiors with other Jesuit brothers to El Salvador,where he completed his second year of early reli-gious training or novitiate in the city of SantaTecla. El Salvador, the land of the Savior, thegreatest discovery of his life as he once told one ofhis two sisters, became his return port after everyjourney abroad.

Jose Ignacio Martın-Baro (1942–1989). Photo by Marvin Collins.

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The young Nacho exhibited great intellectualcapacity and academic discipline early on in thenovitiate, but he was seen as an overachieving andsomewhat rigid student by some of his formerclassmates there. Both his advanced knowledge ofGreek and Latin, and his high grades served himwell and distinguished him from the rest. Hisintellectual tenacity would become a charactertrademark that often led him to dismiss thoseconsidered less brilliant and to fight head on withthose of equal or greater capacity.

Upon finishing his novitiate studies in ElSalvador in September 1961, Nacho made hisvows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In thepoem “Letter to America’s Son” (Martın Abril,1964) in his book of poems, Nostalgia at theplateau of Castile, Paco advises his son to bestrong and offers to be the godfather of his son’svows. Through this literary work, Paco offers arare and intimate view of the Martın-Baro fam-ily and Nacho across time. In poem after poem,the reader witnesses the deep affection familymembers have for each other and details of theireveryday lives. The admiration and love of Pacotoward Nacho are also found in copies of hisbooks that he inscribed for his son.

From El Salvador, Nacho was soon transferredto Quito’s Catholic University in Ecuador wherehe studied classical humanities for two years. Helater moved to Colombia to begin his undergrad-uate degree in philosophy at Javeriana University.It was there that Nacho found his true intellectualcalling—psychology—and combined it master-fully with his studies in philosophy. His philoso-phy degree thesis, To Be and To Suffer (Martın-Baro, 1964a), was the product of a seminar onexistentialist psychology in 1964.

His Colombian period also marked the begin-ning of his career as a dedicated and prolific writerat the early age of 22. A little known fact aboutNacho is that his first academic work dealt withclinical psychology in which he reviewed CarlRogers’s nondirective approach to psychologicaltreatment (Martın-Baro, 1964b; Martın-Baro,1964c). Besides humanistic psychology, his earlyinterests in psychology were focused mainly onexistentialist and psychoanalytic therapeutic ap-proaches and theories. He developed a specialfondness for logotherapy (a form of existentialanalysis) and an admiration for Austrian psychia-trist Viktor Frankl, who was one of his mainreferents for his philosophy degree thesis. PerhapsNacho felt very comfortable with Frankl’s ap-

proach since, as Gordon W. Allport (1973) main-tained, Frankl was neither pessimistic nor antire-ligious like many other European existentialistthinkers of the time.

Moved by a fascination with Frankl’s workand by his academic self-confidence, Nachowrote directly to the famous Austrian psychia-trist to describe his experiences with Colombianindigenous people. During that time, Nacho hadbegun working as a clergyman in the densejungles of El Choco (near the Atlantic coast)with Afro-Colombian communities. This expe-rience left a deep mark on Nacho as he tried tounderstand the social roots of fatalism amongdisenfranchised people from the perspectives oflogotherapy and existentialism.

Nacho had also expressed to Frankl his inter-est in studying under him in Vienna. Frankl,impressed by Nacho’s letters, welcomed him tocome to Vienna. However, he advised Nacho tostudy experimental psychology in the UnitedStates first, in a phenomenological-existentialistprogram. Frankl was very specific and recom-mended that Nacho attend Duquesne Universityin Pittsburgh where psychologist and Dutchpriest Adrian Van Kaam and Frankl’s formerassistant at Harvard University, Rolf von Eck-artsberg, taught logotherapy. Many of the fre-quent changes in the path of Nacho’s life weredue in part to the orders given by his Jesuitsuperiors and this may be one of the reasonswhy he never went onto studying in Vienna orPittsburgh. After all, he had already taken hisvow of obedience. It is important to keep inmind that his exchange with Frankl marked anearly milestone on his career and shaped hisworldview and some of the tenets that wouldbecome his own approach to psychology.

In 1966, Nacho returned to El Salvador andstarted working at the Jesuit school, ColegioExternado San Jose (see Beirne, 1985), wherehe took on the challenge of mastering chemistryso that he could teach it. He also taught litera-ture and became the school’s discipline prefectand library director. The following year, he wasasked to teach religion and ethics, direct thechorus, and work as a collaborator of the schoolmagazine, Juventud. During both years, he trav-eled to the United States as a supervisor forexchange students and took full advantage ofthis opportunity to learn English.

About the same time, Nacho started teachingphilosophy at the place that would eventually be-

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come his academic home and, ultimately, his rest-ing place —the University of Central America(UCA) founded by the Jesuits and supported bythe wealthy and powerful. This posting was shortlived and he once again left the country, this timefor Frankfurt to initiate the studies in theology thathis Jesuit training required. His time in Frankfurtcoincided with that of fellow brothers from UCA,including Jon Sobrino who later became one ofthe main figures of Liberation Theology. Nachowas disenchanted with the atmosphere in Frank-furt and decided to transfer to Belgium’s CatholicUniversity of Louvain. With his ability to learnnew languages, Nacho took on French and rapidlybecame proficient. He combined his studies withpastoral duties during the weekends when he oftenworked with Spanish immigrants in Brussels.

Nacho had remained in Europe until 1969,when he returned to El Salvador to complete histheology degree at the request of IgnacioEllacurıa, a leading Basque Jesuit in CentralAmerica. However, he left for Europe again andfinished his studies in Eegenhoven, Belgium, in1970. Later that year, he was ordained and tookhis final vows as a Jesuit priest in his nativeValladolid and closed a 10-year chapter that tookhim from Europe to Latin America and back sev-eral times.

Nacho was an avid music lover and in Europehe began an affair that lasted for the rest of hislife: he acquired a guitar. This event was soimportant that his father, Paco, described it inone of the several books that he authored. Thequest ended with the purchase of a guitarworth 2,500 pesetas that he was able to affordby translating books into Spanish as a side job.Translating books was a professional career inhis family and two of his brothers did this for aliving. Nacho’s most important translation workwas Pierre Flottes’s, L’histoire et L’inconscientHumain, which was published in Spain in 1971as The Unconscious in History.

But before Nacho entertained friends and rel-atives with his guitar, he had already entertainedwith a magic wand. By the time Nacho wasabout 10 years old, he was a bona fide magicianin high demand for family gatherings and birth-days. Nacho was a member of the nationalassociation of magicians. The eminent Spanishwriter Miguel Delibes, a close friend of Nacho’sfamily, immortalized Nacho’s first serious tradein a poem called, Nacho, The Magician, whichis included at the end of this work.

While studying theology, he formally began hisstudies in psychology at UCA, which he com-pleted in 1975 and continued to perfect until thelast day of life. At UCA, Nacho was mentored byJesus Arroyo Lasa, a Basque Jesuit who had stud-ied applied psychology and psychoanalysis inInnsbruck and was an enthusiast of Marxist socialpsychology. Authors like Paulo Freire and HerbertMarcuse and the like became referents for Nachothanks to Father Arroyo. Under Arroyo’s guid-ance, and while still an undergraduate, Ignaciopublished Psychodiagnostic of Latin America in1972, a text that contained ideas he would laterdevelop along with some he would abandon, es-pecially those associated with his early psychoan-alytic views. At that point, Nacho had alreadywritten 26 articles and become head of the edito-rial committee of the prestigious Jesuit journalCentral American Studies (known as ECA for itsacronym in Spanish), which he later directed be-tween 1975 and 1976.

Immediately after finishing his undergraduatedegree in psychology at UCA, Nacho wasawarded a Fulbright scholarship to further hisstudies in the United States at a graduate level.Before being accepted at the prestigious Univer-sity of Chicago, from which he obtained his mas-ter’s degree in 1977 and his doctorate in 1979, hespent a short period of time in Buffalo, New York,polishing his English skills. For his master’s the-sis, he studied social attitudes and group conflictsin El Salvador and for his dissertation he focusedon crowding among low income Salvadorans. Na-cho’s mentors included well known psychologistswith diverse interests such as Milton J. Rosenberg,Salvador Maddi, Suzanne Ouellette, NormanBradburn, and Mihaly Csıkszentmihalyi. Rosen-berg recalled long and erudite conversations withhim at a Jesuit residence in Hyde Park, the neigh-borhood where the University of Chicago’s maincampus is located. Ouellette remembers him as anexceptional student, anxious to return to El Salva-dor as soon as possible. As was usual in everyplace where he lived, Nacho combined his studieswith pastoral work during the weekends.

In Chicago, he did not particularly enjoy theweather but took full advantage of culturalevents such as the opera and the symphonyorchestra with his mentor and friend Suzanne.Nacho chose Chicago, in part, because of itslarge Jesuit community from Latin America,especially at the University of Chicago. Thesocial and organizational psychology program

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was rather small and not even among the top inthe area, but it gave him the time and the milieuto systematize his own ideas.

In many ways, Nacho was not viewed by hisprofessors and mentors as a typical graduate stu-dent. At 35 years old, he was older than most ofhis classmates. In addition, his intellectual statureset him apart. Among students, however, the storywas very different: He was like everybody else.He lived and enjoyed the frugal life of the averagegraduate student with other Jesuits who shared thesame quarters and who had relinquished the com-forts of a well-equipped, staffed Jesuit residence inthe area. Nacho was a very lively member of hisstudent community and his loud laugh could beheard in crowded parties at which he always sangand played his guitar.

As a man who did not believe that destinywas ever written, he set the last part of life cyclein motion on November 16, 1979, the day onwhich his doctoral dissertation was approved.From that day, he would have exactly 10 yearsto produce as much as possible, in a race againstdeath that not many intellectuals ever face in theUnited States or Europe. A few years after hisreturn to El Salvador, in response to a letterfrom Suzanne in which she expressed greatfears for his life, Nacho wrote that he had an-ticipated he would only live for two years afterhis return. So, from his point of view, he wasenjoying extra time with the work he thoughtessential to do. In 1979, Nacho finally returnedto El Salvador and to UCA, to stay for good thistime as a consecrated scholar and as a Salva-doran citizen, two titles that were granted tomake official what he had always been. Duringhis Chicago period, many things that influencedNacho had occurred in El Salvador and LatinAmerica, including the meeting in Puebla, therise of Liberation Theology, the persecution ofthe church and, most important, the increasingsociopolitical radicalization of the country.

The breath of Nacho’s robust academic prepa-ration was not sufficient defense when war brokeout and UCA suffered its first wave of attacks. Inhis unpublished work, Psychosocial Roots of Warin El Salvador (1981), Nacho describes how hewas violently awakened during the night after abomb went off outside the Jesuit residence wherehe lived. He experienced the effects of the bomb’schemicals, intense fear, and heightened feelings ofhelplessness. Attacks such as this, however, madehim experience the war from inside and identify

himself with the struggle and the suffering of theSalvadoran people.

The Jesuits had received several death threatsand were ordered to leave the country for theirown safety. Paramilitary groups whose mottowas “Be A Patriot, Kill A Priest” had alreadyclaimed the life of Archbishop Oscar Romeroand several priests and nuns. Nacho learnedquickly how to survive under these circum-stances and never felt more determined to puthis knowledge to work for the sake of the socialchange that he saw coming to El Salvador.

At UCA, Nacho juggled several administrativeposts (vice-rector, member of the board of trust-ees, chair of the psychology department, and di-rector of research programs) as well as academicduties (faculty, author of studies, director of theUniversity Institute of Public Opinion, and studentadvisor). Despite his rich intellectual and aca-demic life, Nacho was happiest among the modestpeople of Jayaque and its vicinities, a villagewhere he worked as a priest. He comforted, gavestrength, and helped the poor to improve theirmaterial and spiritual conditions. The childrenwaited every weekend for his visits and the sweettreats he brought with him.

Nacho’s prestige and visibility skyrocketedin the mid-1980’s and he became a keynotespeaker in high demand at national and interna-tional events. In El Salvador, he was accused ofbeing a communist or a subversive by his con-servative peers. In some circles, he was knownas “Nacho, the Red One.” In Latin America, itwas in the context of the 20th InteramericanCongress of Psychology in Caracas that Nachogained major notoriety for his poignant ideasabout the role of psychology as an instrument ofchange. He had been invited by his colleagueand friend, Maritza Montero, with whom heshared his vision for a more committed andcritical psychology. Two years later he becamethe vice-president for Mexico, Central Americaand the Caribbean of the Interamerican Psycho-logical Association (IPS), in a meeting held inHavana, Cuba.

For Nacho, traveling was not a perk of theacademic intelligentsia; it was a strategy to sur-vive by being in the public eye and a way toserve witness who could denounce the atrocitiesof war and the human rights violations inflictedby the Salvadoran government with the help ofthe United States. Nacho traveled much morefrequently to the United States than anywhere

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else in order to let people know what theirgovernment was doing “in their back yard.” Hestarted close relationships with activist psychol-ogists Adrianne Aron in the West coast and withM. Brinton Lykes in the East coast. Both friendshelped him to organize talks and visits to keyplaces.

Nacho had a love-hate relationship with theUnited States even before the Salvadoran civilwar started. He was well-versed in the topic ofNorth American foreign affairs and he dis-trusted almost everything that came from there,including the psychology made in the UnitedStates. Studying in the US was a form of gettingto know the enemy from inside. In his two mainworks, the handbooks Action and Ideology(1983) and System, Group, and Power (1989),he opened a North-South dialogue rarely seen inthe academic books on psychology available inLatin America then or now. Nacho not onlyarticulated sharp critiques of American psychol-ogy, but also proposed provocative ways tobreak away from it. A telling aspect of hisdeep-seated sentiment was his determination towrite in Spanish only, despite the fact that Na-cho was fluent in English. Ultimately and un-fortunately, this decision put his writings at riskof going unnoticed by English-speaking schol-ars in the US and beyond.

Friends and colleagues stood in solidaritywith Nacho and often advised him to be carefuland leave the country if possible. He turneddown several job offers in prestigious institu-tions and instead he asked for help in the formof books, travel funds, and moral support. Heopened other channels of communicationswithin the academia in such specialized journalssuch as the El Salvador Journal of Psychology,group-edited books, and editorial committees.He accepted short visiting posts in the CentralUniversity of Venezuela, Zulia University, Uni-versity of Puerto Rico, Javeriana University,Autonomous and Complutense Universities inMadrid, and the University of Costa Rica. Bythe end of his career, Nacho had edited, com-piled, or penned more than a dozen books andover 100 articles. Nacho is best known for pi-oneering what he named liberation psychology(Martın-Baro, 1986), his own proposal of whata political and critical social psychology shouldaspire to be. With very few exceptions, Nachowrote most of his work as the sole author.

Beginning in 1987, the situation in El Salva-dor had become so difficult that he went intohiding for short periods of times. That sameyear, in his visit to Cuba, he told English psy-chologist Alison Harris (1990) that he had de-clined to appear on Cuban national TV becauseit would most certainly bring some kind ofretaliation in El Salvador. He told her that heknew the rules that he could break withoutexposing himself to serious danger.

Toward the end of his life, his health deteri-orated. In his last visit to Spain in 1989, hisbrother Carlos saw a nervous and overtired Na-cho with several medications on top of thenightstand. The end came about two weeks afterhis 47th birthday during the early hours of No-vember 16, 1989. Still dressed and awake, Na-cho was working on a manuscript when an elitemilitary squad of the Atlacatl Battalion forcedits way into the university campus and the Jesuitresidence, using as a pretext a major operationlaunched by the guerrillas of the FMLN, fivedays before. The militia had come with ordersto eliminate Ignacio Ellacurıa, UCA’s rector,and leave no witnesses. In total, six Jesuitpriests were massacred along with their cookand her daughter. According to the versiongiven by one of witnesses of the crime, it wasNacho who told his executioners before dying:“This is an injustice. You are carrion.”

Meeting Ignacio Martın-Baro: A NarrativeAccount of a Personal Journey

I first met Nacho Martın-Baro the day that hewas killed, although I was not fully aware ofthat until later. As a teenager, I rememberwatching live news about the killings that tookplace at UCA and thinking that the people lyingon the grass, shown on TV, were importantpeople. It was in 1993, when I was an under-graduate student of psychology at the Univer-sity of Central America (UCA) that I recalledvividly Nacho’s death more than three yearsbefore. As a freshman student, instead of tour-ing the beautiful campus of UCA as usuallyhappens in U.S. colleges and universities, I waswith my peers watching a heart-wrenching doc-umentary that narrated the UCA Massacre, as itwas known, that took place in November 1989.It was the university’s attempt to situate ourexperience for a new breed of postwar students.

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This second encounter with him was brief andI did not realize its importance until I was in mythird year of studies when I took two social psy-chology classes. His presence in introductory psy-chology courses during the first two years was dimand we never really took advantage of the vastwealth of studies and texts that he had produced.Most faculty members were Nacho’s colleaguesand former students, but that fact did not becomecrucial until we started taking more advancedcourses. The social psychology course, however,was different because we used his handbooks astextbooks. During this time, a new world openedup to me as I read him and initiated a pilgrimagethat has taken me across the globe, learning andfollowing the academic and personal tracks thatNacho had left.

In my fourth year, a friend encouraged me toseek a position as a survey researcher at the Uni-versity Institute of Public Opinion (IUDOP, itsSpanish acronym) that Nacho had founded in1986. This fourth act set in motion a chain reac-tion that allowed me to get and feel closer to him.I quickly became an IUDOP research analyst andworked in the place where he had worked. Myoffice was across the street from the Jesuit resi-dence where he had been killed. I had access to hispersonal files. He had left everything well orga-nized; books, manuscripts, surveys, SPSS outputs,research reports. I felt as he had left everythingready for curious people like me.

Through colleagues who worked with him, Istarted learning more about Nacho and feltmoved and inspired by the example of his lifeand work. It was clear to me that I wanted toleave the country and study social psychology.Two years after starting to work at IUDOP, Iwas awarded a Fulbright scholarship and hadthe chance to gain a graduate degree in the USand, particularly, in the city of Chicago. I feltthat I was getting closer to Nacho. Due to thetype of scholarship I received, I could onlyapply to Master’s Level programs and decidedto study at Loyola University, a Jesuit univer-sity in Chicago. There, I met a priest who knewNacho and was a frequent guest at the Jesuitresidences on campus. In 1999, I attended amemorial event prepared specially for Nacho atthe University of Chicago and was moved by adocumentary presented PBS’ Enemies of Warand the testimonies it included by former col-leagues, friends, and professors.

One of the speakers was Milton Rosenberg,who had been chair of Social and Organiza-tional Psychology when Nacho was a student. Iapproached him at the end of the event. I toldhim that I had come from El Salvador and thatI was interested in the work of Nacho. He askedme why I was not at the University of Chicagoand that I should consider transferring fromLoyola. Tempting as it was, it was impossible tomove for several reasons. This encounter, how-ever, gave me the opportunity to speak to Mil-ton Rosenberg later to talk about Nacho. Hethen suggested I find Suzanne Kobasa to learnmore about Nacho’s time in Chicago.

Dr. Rosenberg was not aware that Dr. Kobasawas Dr. Kobasa no more; she had changed thelast name she used to Ouellette and I was notable to find her. By sheer luck, I learned of thename change, and proceeded to find her andestablish contact with her. Again, I felt that Ihad met another important person in the life ofNacho and I was getting to know more abouthim through her. Unknowingly, I had alsostarted a relationship with Dr. Ouellette that haslasted since then.

In 2006, I was invited to give a talk aboutNacho’s work at the University of Seville andtook advantage of the trip to Spain to establishcontact with his family. I knew that Nacho hadfive siblings and started searching on the Internetfor contact information. I luckily found telephonenumbers and addresses for two of them and calledwhile in Spain. Carlos Martın-Baro, Nacho’syounger and closer brother, met me in a cafe inMadrid where we spent several hours conversingabout his brother and family. Carlos gave me theopportunity to meet Nacho at a deeper level andprovided me with key information about him. Wemet once more before I left for Chicago at Ma-drid’s Parque El Retiro. We exchanged meaning-ful gifts such as videos with footage of Nacho thatI had found and he gave me a book (C. Martın-Baro, 2002) that he had authored that dealt withthe death of his father, Paco Martın Abril, and tosome extent with the life of Nacho and the Martın-Baro family. Later, he sent me family pictures ofNacho, including the first picture available of himat the age of two.

Other close friends of Nacho have given meinformation as well as a deeper understanding andperspective about the juxtaposition of Nacho’swork and life. One of them, Maritza Montero,who I met in 2002, has become one of my per-

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sonal mentors since. In 2009, I had the privilege tocontribute as a coauthor (Luque-Ribelles, Garcıa-Ramırez, & Portillo, 2009) in a book edited by herand Christopher Sonn (Montero & Sonn, 2009),the first published in English, that revisits Nacho’sproposed psychology of liberation. Before that,the only systematic source of Nacho’s work inEnglish was the compilation, Writings for a Lib-eration Psychology, published in 1994 by HarvardUniversity Press and crafted by a group of Na-cho’s friends that included Adrianne Aron.

In 2010, I returned to El Salvador after 11years in the United States and such was my luckthat I was offered a job at UCA. My office isbarely 100 feet from where I worked previouslyas an undergraduate student and it is acrossfrom the Chapel where the remains of Nachoand the Martyrs of UCA rest. In 2011, I waselected as the vice-president for Mexico, Cen-tral America, and the Caribbean of the Inter-american Psychological Association, the sameposition once held by Nacho. When I take allthese experiences as a whole, it is clear tome that I have gotten to know much more thanthe life and the work of a man that I deeplyadmire; I have learned to weave his life storyand mine to construct my own.

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Beirne, C. J. (1985). Jesuit education for justice: TheColegio in El Salvador 1968–1984. Harvard Ed-ucational Review, 55, 1–19.

De la Corte Ibanez, L. (2001). Memoria de un com-promiso. La psicologıa social de Ignacio Martın-Baro [Memory of a commitment. The social psy-chology of Ignacio Martın-Baro]. Bilbao, Spain:Desclee de Brouwer.

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Luque-Ribelles, V., Garcıa-Ramırez, M., & Portillo,N. (2009). Gendering peace and liberation: A par-ticipatory-action approach to critical conscious-ness acquisition among women in a marginalizedneighborhood. In M. Montero & C. C. Sonn (Eds.),The psychology of liberation: Theory and practice(pp. 277–293). New York, NY: Springer.

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Martın Abril, F. J. (1937). Romancero guerrero [Thewarrior book of ballads]. Valladolid, Spain: CasaMartın.

Martın Abril, F. J. (1964). Nostalgia en la Meseta[Nostalgia at the plateau of Castile]. Madrid,Spain: Ediciones Stadium.

Martın-Baro, C. (2002). Memoria de tu muerte [Memoryof your death]. Salamanca, Spain: Editora Provincial.

Martın-Baro, I. (1964a). Sufrir y ser [To suffer and tobe]. Unpublished bachelor’s thesis. Pontific Javeri-ana University, Bogota, Colombia.

Martın-Baro, I. (1964b). La terapia no directiva deCarl Rogers [The non-directive therapy of CarlRogers]. Antena, 8, 15–24.

Martın-Baro, I. (1964c). La terapia no directiva deCarl Rogers (II) [The non-directive therapy of CarlRogers]. Antena, 9, 19–25.

Martın-Baro, I. (1972). Psicodiagnostico de AmericaLatina [Psychodiagnostic of Latin America]. SanSalvador, El Salvador: Editorial LEA.

Martın-Baro, I. (1981). Raıces psicosociales de laguerra en El Salvador [Psychosocial roots of warin El Salvador]. Unpublished manuscript, Univer-sidad Centroamericana, San Salvador, El Salvador.

Martın-Baro, I. (1983). Accion e ideologıa. Psicologıasocial desde Centroamerica [Action and ideology.Social psychology from Central America]. San Sal-vador, El Salvador: UCA Editores.

Martın-Baro, I. (1986). Hacia una psicologıa de laliberacion [Toward a liberation psychology].Boletın de Psicologıa, 22, 219–231.

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Montero, M., & Sonn, C. C. (Eds.). (2009). Thepsychology of liberation: Theory and practice.New York, NY: Springer.

(Appendix follows)

84 PORTILLO

Appendix

Nacho, The Magician

By Miguel Delibes (1990)

Translated by Nelson Portillo

About 25 or 30 years ago, every time a birth-day of one our children approached —very nu-merous and very young then— my wife phonedthe home of Paco Martın Abril. She spoke withhim or with Alicia, his wife and asked if his son

Ignacio had any commitments for that day. Ig-nacio, Nacho, never had one or, if he did, hewould make arrangements to please us. Nachowas just like that, selfless, gentle, understand-ing. By then he could have not been older than

Nacho, the magician

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85A NARRATIVE ACCOUNT OF IGNACIO MARTIN-BARO’S LIFE

fourteen and was thrilled with illusionism. Hewanted to be a magician, a juggler, do trickswith his hand. . . He believed, as a good magi-cian does, in the transformation of men.

On the evening of his debut, the childrenenthusiastically welcomed Nacho Martın–Baro.His image of a magician was very moving. He

was a burly teenager and the tuxedo of his fatherwas too tight and the legs of his pants were toolong. An enemy of etiquette, Nacho’s bow wascrooked and the muddy pair of boots he had justworn to a soccer match was poking out from thebottom of his pants. But nothing mattered, noth-ing. The mysterious suitcase he had left on the

(Appendix continues)

From left to right: Nacho at age 5 (1947); The Martın-Baro Family (ca. 1951); As archbishopin a school play (ca. 1950); Spending his summer in Segovia (ca. 1952); Playing the guitar (ca.1972); With friend and colleague Maritza Montero and Central University of Venezuela’sRector (1987); Posing as a doctoral graduate from the University of Chicago (1979);Preaching and denouncing social injustice during mass (ca. 1988).

86 PORTILLO

far side of the table he was using, kept the children’seyes wide open. As a good psychologist, he talked tothem during the preparations in order to keep theirenthusiasm. Despite his young age, Nacho was al-ready a master of card games. But after a very prom-ising opening, when the more complicated tricksstarted, he was nothing more than an apprentice. Outof the mysterious suitcase, he pulled a folded top hat,unfolded it, tightened the knot of his tie and beganstuffing it with colorful handkerchiefs. But beforeconducting the first hocus-pocus movement, whitedoves came flying out from his pockets, his tuxedocuffs and the bottom of his pants and Nacho, themagician, laughed, trying to catch them. While thechildren celebrated, realizing that the untimely erup-tion of the birds had not spoiled the evening, afountain of colored ribbons, confetti, inexhaustiblestreamers came out from his hands. It was such amemorable evening and its success so great that thebirthday boy told me when Nacho closed the door:

He is better than a circus magician.To which the boy’s sister, a sharp observer,

replied a bit disappointed:But he doesn’t wear magician’s shoes.Sensitive, deep, fraternal, noble, Nacho never

abandoned the career of magician nor did hedispose of his walking boots. From self-

sacrifice to self-sacrifice (he left his house, wasa novice in Villagarcıa, went to El Salvador,became a naturalized citizen of this country, andembraced the cause of the underprivileged), hewalked towards a chosen death. He came andwent:

The country of one hundred families. Its peo-ple are starving.

But he never gave up, never lost faith orhope. He believed, as a good magician does, inthe transformation of men. He trusted. On hislast visit, his parents found him alone, pensive,with his mind far away:

What are you thinking, Nacho? Is everythingok?

Nacho dismissed them and smiled. Nothinghappened to him. He was just dreaming, pre-paring the great revolution, his best illusionist’strick: to turn one hundred hawks in pigeons andby this ruse, redeem the people of an entirecountry. He ignored that, upon his return, thesnare that would end his life and that of hisbrothers was waiting for him. I want to believethat, in that ill-fated moment, the sky of the cityof San Salvador was filled with white doves inhonor of his gesture and his memory.

87A NARRATIVE ACCOUNT OF IGNACIO MARTIN-BARO’S LIFE