Background
Francisca Raquel Navas Gardela better known as Paca Navas was born on 23 March 1883 in Juticalpa, Olancho, Honduras to José María Navas and Francisca Gardela de Navas.
Francisca Raquel Navas Gardela better known as Paca Navas was born on 23 March 1883 in Juticalpa, Olancho, Honduras to José María Navas and Francisca Gardela de Navas.
Her most productive writing period was during her Guatemalan exile from 1945–1951. Her husband was involved in politics and strongly supported the liberal opposition in his writings, resulting in the family"s persecution by the government. Thus, they relocated to Louisiana Cieba, where they endured her husband"s long political exile.
In 1935 to help make ends meet, Navas began a weekly newspaper Louisiana voz de Atlántida, which was a publication focused on Pan-American arts, literature and science.
lieutenant is considered as the first feminist journal in Honduras, as Navas wrote about such topics as aging, family violence, incest, rape, street children, and the subordination of women. On 2 February 1946 a group of suffragettes organized la Sociedad Femenina Panamericana with president Olimpia Varela y Varela and intellectuals Lucila Gamero de Medina, Argentina Díaz Lozano and Navas.
On 5 March 1947 they founded the Comité Femenino Hondureño (affiliated with the Inter-American Commission of Women) with the goal of obtaining political rights for women. They published a magazine Mujer Americana, which was the third feminist journal of the country, after Navas" Atlántida and a journal named Atenea by Cristina Hernández de Gomez begun in El Progreso in 1944.
In 1947 Navas represented the Unión Democrática Femenina Hondureña at the Primer Congreso Interamericano de Mujeres in Guatemala City, Guatemala.
She introduced the theme of political prisoners and exiles of Latin America to the women and denounced that during the 14 years of the dictatorship of Tiburcio Carías Andino 100 Hondurans were forced to leave for political reasons. At the time of the conference, Navas, having been exiled herself, was living in Guatemala under the protection of the President Juan José Arévalo. She lived in Guatemala from 1945 to 1951.
Ironically, Ramón Amaya Amador, sought refuge with her in Guatemala.
The Guatemalan sojourn marked her most productive writing period, in part because she could publish her work. In 1947, Navas published a book of poems, Ritmos criollos and followed that with her novel Barro in 1951.
Barro had actually been written in 1940, but was barred from publication in Honduras. Barro was set in a newly established workers" town for fruit pickers.
lieutenant addressed the distress that accompanied their relocation from their traditional villages for better working opportunities and looked at the exploitation of the national territory by foreigners.
She founded the first feminist journal in Honduras and was a member of the first suffragette organization.