The Covid-19 pandemic has presented the world with unprecedented challenges. The effects on society have been comprehensive and affected every walk of life. In Pandemic Heroes and Heroines, Marguerite Bouvard offers the first book-length study of the pandemic's impact on one of the most vulnerable groups, front line medical workers charged with caring for the sick and providing general health and welfare.

This book celebrates an intimate and profound link between women -- that between grandmother and granddaughter.

This collection of stories and vignettes -- a multicultural anthology of women from diverse ethnic backgrounds -- reveals how the mantle of culture and family is passed from woman to woman. As they vividly explode stereotypes, the pieces illustrate not only the courage of older women, but the received wisdom of younger women.

Granddaughters remember their grandmothers as extraordinary women at once defiant and tradition bound, loving and stubbornly dogmatic. Some reinvent their grandmothers, others discover them for the first time. For example, Mary Helen Washington unmasks the word "freedpeople" in her grandmother's story to reveal the widespread aggression against supposedly freed slaves. Beryl Minkle's Bubba tells a tale of cultural and religious injustice that includes the oppression of women. Noted Native American writer Paula Gurin Allen reflects on her different cultural threads, as she searches for her Lebanese great-grandmother for whom she was named.

It is important to acknowledge the thousands who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and to remember those who died as well as the grief endured by their loved ones. Honoring Specialist Noah Charles Pierce is a way of thanking all those young men and women who gave their lives for their country. Marguerite Guzman Bouvard Author of The Unpredictability of Light These poems and the story that surrounds them speak as eloquently as any of the great works of Remarque or Owen about the raw pain and immense cost of war. We owe it to Noah Charles Pierce and to the families of this war's many victims to take Noah's story into our hearts and dedicate ourselves to being better advocates for peace and greater supporters for the care that will be needed for years to come by those families who have borne the, too often untold, burden of these wars. Kevin Bowen, Ph.D. Author of Eight True Maps of the West: Poems Director of the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and its Social Consequences At the center of this collection of essays, letters, and articles are the vivid poems of Noah Charles Pierce, their heart and soul palpable on the page. American soldier in our Iraq War, he came home haunted by what that war had done to him. These poems help us meet a young man who was alert, kind, attentive, saddened, and in the end, courageously struggling against the odds to hold on. They are Noah's testament of life and for life. Fred Marchant, Ph.D. Author of Full Moon Boat and The Looking House

Social Justice and the Power of Compassion looks at how a single person, or a small organization, working at the grassroots level can make great strides in helping the marginalized and disenfranchised. Marguerite Guzman Bouvard weaves the personal stories of the founders and directors of such organizations as the Polaris Project, MADRE, and the Harpswell Foundation to show how they have dealt with social problems of many kinds that have been invisible for too long. From dealing with climate change to giving housing and giving medical care to the homeless these people and their organizations have created models that have been replicated around the country and successfully given widespread attention to these important issues.

Mothers of Adult Children elucidates what happens when children come of age and leave home, creating new lives in the realms of work and relationships. Mothers from around the world learn that this is the point in which their relationships with their children must drastically change. Mothers often come to terms with the changes by accepting differences and providing moral and emotional support when needed. However, the evolutionary nature of mothers' roles throughout the course of their children's lives is not only determined by the mother-child dynamic. The mothering of adult children is a transformative role, and the stories presented here show that the dynamics between mother and child are also influenced by cultural events. Accidents, disasters, war, and other hardships also intervene in these stories of multicultural motherhood. This book reveals the problems mothers of adult children face and celebrates the outstanding accomplishments of those who mother through hardship.

Mothers of Adult Children elucidates what happens when children come of age and leave home, creating new lives in the realms of work and relationships. Mothers from around the world learn that this is the point in which their relationships with their children must drastically change. Mothers often come to terms with the changes by accepting differences and providing moral and emotional support when needed. However, the evolutionary nature of mothers' roles throughout the course of their children's lives is not only determined by the mother-child dynamic. The mothering of adult children is a transformative role, and the stories presented here show that the dynamics between mother and child are also influenced by cultural events. Accidents, disasters, war, and other hardships also intervene in these stories of multicultural motherhood. This book reveals the problems mothers of adult children face and celebrates the outstanding accomplishments of those who mother through hardship.

Revolutionizing Motherhood examines one of the most astonishing human rights movements of recent years. During the Argentine junta's Dirty War against subversives, as tens of thousands were abducted, tortured, and disappeared, a group of women forged the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and changed Argentine politics forever. The Mothers began in the 1970s as an informal group of working-class housewives making the rounds of prisons and military barracks in search of their disappeared children. As they realized that both state and church officials were conspiring to withhold information, they started to protest, claiming the administrative center of Argentina the Plaza de Mayo for their center stage. In this volume, Marguerite G. Bouvard traces the history of the Mothers and examines how they have transformed maternity from a passive, domestic role to one of public strength. Bouvard also gives a detailed history of contemporary Argentina, including the military's debacle in the Falklands, the fall of the junta, and the efforts of subsequent governments to reach an accord with the Mothers. Finally, she examines their current agenda and their continuing struggle to bring the murderers of their children to justice.

In Women Reshaping Human Rights, ordinary yet extraordinary women tell their stories, in their own words. Their deeds span continents and have profoundly affected millions worldwide.Readers will meet Vera Laska, who as a teenager joined the resistance against the Nazis in Czechoslovakia; Dai Qing, who fights the Communist Party's grip upon the media and government in the People's Republic of China; and Juana Beatrice Gutierrez and the Mothers of East Los Angeles, who challenge drug dealers and toxic polluters threatening their neighborhood. Professor Bouvard provides a complete biography of every activist. The stage is thus set for each individual, who recounts real-life stories of courage that sadly until now have gone unnoticed. Finally we hear the voices of those who have transformed the quest for human rights. This volume is divided into five sections: Confronting Authoritarian Governments, Struggling with Race and Ethnicity, Seeking Enviromental Justice, Upholding Women's Rights as Human Rights, and Making the World Safe for Childern.