Esther's Legacy
From the voice of those of us who remain…
Every time we see an Afro-Peruvian woman on Peruvian television, we feel the same thing:
that door was opened by Esther Chávez.
Perhaps there were other Black women in the arts, but the first one the entire country came to know on the small screen, the one who entered homes with her head held high and her skin without fear, that one was her, Esther Chávez.
To us, she was more than a public figure: she was a mother, and a mother-grandmom.
For Esther, acting was not just a profession.
It was spiritual nourishment and also sustenance.
Every role, even the smallest one, those “little bolitos,” as she called them, meant something great:
it was art, it was dignity, and it was bread for her family.
At home, she was a mother before she was a woman.
And so many times, she was also a father.
She was firm, demanding, and protective.
She raised her children with character and values, and when life required it, she also fought for her grandchildren (the children of her son Lucho), especially the older ones, the first grandchildren, whom she accompanied, cared for, and helped raise as if they were her own children.
She never allowed anyone to humiliate us, nor did she allow herself to be humiliated.
“You must never let anyone step on your poncho,” she always said, and that phrase became the law of life in her home.
She knew who she was, and she taught us to know who we were.
She fought for her family with a strength that still takes our breath away.
Her greatest legacy was her capacity for sacrifice, devotion, and detachment.
At the age of 80, she sold her home in Lima and chose to begin again, far from her country, carrying silences, absences, and sorrows that only a deeply courageous woman can bear.
Her eldest sons, Rodolfo and Lucho, passed away in 1994 and 2001.
That loss marked our mother and grandmother forever.
Perhaps out of pain, perhaps to protect her soul, she chose to distance herself from her Peru.
And yet, she never truly left.
Esther lives in every Black actress who steps onto a television set today.
She lives in her books La morena de abajo el puente and Paulita me lo contó mi madre, where she left lessons on how to be a mother, a daughter, and a woman, with self-love and dignity.
She lives in us:
in myself, Ivette, her daughter, who also chose theater and learned from her to love that art which hurts, transforms, and liberates;
and in Melissa, perhaps her favorite granddaughter, who grew up under her firm and loving gaze and carries her strength as an inheritance.
The legacy of Esther Chávez was not only that of a pioneering actress.
It was the legacy of a real, brave, and generous woman who, even without having everything, gave everything:
to her children, to her grandchildren, to her family, to the people she loved, and to her audience.
For this reason, those of us who remain to tell her story remember her this way:
the first Afro-Peruvian actress…
and the strongest and bravest mother and mother-grandmother we ever knew.