Eva María

I was eleven or twelve years old when Chávez was elected. He was my main inspiration for thinking about the possibility of a different kind of society.

In Venezuela, the wealth disparity is very obvious — you have big mansions and, right behind them, the hills are full of slums. Then Chávez came to power with this progressive rhetoric, this commitment to the poor. I mean, he himself was the poor son of a single mother from Barinas. Part of my family is from that same rural town. Some people in my family actually knew him, or knew his brother or his grandma. It all just seemed amazing, that someone like him could become the president of a country.