About the Author:
I was born in 1951, the height of the baby boom, and was raised in small Midwestern towns. I came of age in the 1960s in Athens, Ohio. I graduated with a degree in English from Brown University in 1974. I lived in New York, N.Y. from 1977 to 1985. I was employed by U.S. Department of Labor as a workers’ compensation claims examiner (the same job Franz Kafka had in Prague in the 1880s). During the same period, I volunteered at a neighborhood center for the Latin American community near Times Square. Friendships I made there, especially with Salvadorans and Guatemalans, radicalized me. In 1985, I moved to Nicaragua to work as a long-term volunteer with Witness for Peace. In 1986 and 1987, I worked with my future wife, Maria Arroyo, in a development project for war refugees in Nicaragua. We coordinated the construction of houses, schools, latrines, cooperatives, and water systems for a thousand families in ten refugee camps. In 1988 and 1989, Maria and I lived in the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico. I wrote a book about our two years in Nicaragua while Maria worked at a cultural center for indigenous peoples. Maria and I were married in March 1989, and in June of the same year, we were sent by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to work for ISER, a religious studies institute in Rio de Janeiro. Our son Daniel was born the next year in Rio. In 1991, we moved to the sertão, the semi-arid region of the northeast of Brazil, to work with CEDITER, a religious NGO that defends the rights of landless peasants. In March of 1994, we adopted our second son, Luiz. During our four years with CEDITER, we lived in the small rural town of Rui Barbosa, Bahia, and served as advisors to unions of rural workers, associations of small producers, and groups of landless families. I have told that story in another place. In early March, 1995, we returned to the United States for an indefinite period to have diagnostic studies done and treatment prescribed for our son, Daniel. When we found that Daniel had autism, we decided to stay in the United States. I worked on the staff of the national offices of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) from 1996 until 2010.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.