Esther Chavez

Every time I see an Afro-Peruvian woman on Peruvian television, I think: that door was opened by my mother.
Perhaps there were other Black women in the arts, but the first one that all Peruvians came to know on the small screen, the one who entered the homes with her head held high and her skin without fear—was her: Esther Chávez, my mother.

For her, acting was spiritual nourishment and also a means of survival. Every role, even the smallest one, those little "bolos",  as she called them, meant something great for her: it was art, it was dignity, and it was bread for her family.

My mother was more a  mother than a woman. She fought for her children with such a strength that still leaves me breathless. She never let anyone "step on her poncho" (her favorite expression). She knew who she was until the very end. Her greatest legacy was her capacity for sacrifice and detachment. At the age of 80, she sold her house in Lima and chose to come live with me, her only living daughter. Her two older sons, my brothers Rodolfo and Lucho, passed away in 1994 and 2001. Perhaps avoiding more pain, perhaps protecting  her soul, she chose to distance herself from her country, from her Peru.

And even though, she never truly left.

Esther lives in every Black actress who steps onto a television set today.
She also lives in her books, La morena de abajo el puente and Paulita me lo contó mi madre, where through her own story she teaches how to be a mother, a daughter, a woman...with self-love.

She lives in me, her daughter, who also does theater and learned from her to love that art which hurts, transforms, and liberates.

My mother’s legacy was not only that of being a pioneering actress.
It was the legacy of a brave, real, and generous woman who, having nothing, gave everything, to her children, to her family, to the people she loved, and to her audience.

For this reason, I, Ivette, her daughter, will always remember her for what she was:
the first Afro-Peruvian actress… and the bravest of them all.

Esther Chávez was not fully recognized during her lifetime. Yet her legacy lives on in every young Afro-Peruvian who dares to pursue a life in the arts. Her story continues through new generations