Juanita Larrauri

Life

She was born in the Floresta neighborhood of Buenos Aires on 12 March 1910. She made her singing debut in 1931. With the rise of Peronism in the 40s, she postponed her singing career for a role in politics. In 1949 she married pianist and orchestral director Francisco Rotundo. She died in Buenos Aires on 21 February 1990 at the age of 79.

Singing career

Larrauri made her debut in 1931 singing on LR3 Radio Nacional (now Radio Belgrano). From there she began to make regular radio appearances. In 1936 she confirmed her place as a popular singer on Radio del Pueblo and made her first record for the Odeón label, singing the tango "Castigo" by Juan Canaro and Luis Rubistein, and the waltz "Sueño fue" by Juan Canaro and Jesús Fernández Blanco. Other radio stations on which she appeared included LS3 Radio Mayo, LS5 Radio Rivadavia, Radio Prieto and Radio Argentina.

With Peronism's rise to power in the 40s she postponed her singing career, but she was still featured in 1952 as the singer in "Evita Capitana" - a feminine hymn to Peronsim - by Rodolfo Sciamarella, and in 1972 she recorded an album titled Canto para mi pueblo. She wrote the tango "La piba de mano a mano" (one of the tracks on this album) together with Tití Rossi.

Apart from her recordings and a few short tours in Argentina and neighboring countries, the bulk of her singing career was on radio.

Political life

With the rise of Peronism (1943–1945) and the success of Juan Perón in the presidential election of 1946, Larrauri aligned herself with Peronism and dedicated her efforts to politics. At that time, women in Argentina were prohibited from participating in political life, leading Juanita Larrauri to join a group of women that, led by Eva Perón, pushed the passing of the law giving women the right to vote, approved in 1947.

Following that victory, Juanita Larrauri joined the National Committee of Eva Perón's Women's Peronist Party (Partido Peronista Femenino, or PPF) as the representative of Entre Ríos Province. Other members were Águeda Barro, Dora Gaeta, María Rosa Calviño, Amparo Pérez and Delia Parodi.

In 1952 Juanita Larrauri was elected by the provincial legislature of Entre Ríos Province as one of its National Senators, joining a group of the first women to be elected to the Senate. That same year Larrauri sang "Evita Capitana", which became the anthem of the PPF and the women's equivalent of the Peronist March. The song was originally recorded with accompaniment by the APO Orchestra, directed by Domingo Marafiotti and the Society Chorus directed by Héctor Artola. In the same year she became the president of the Commission for the Eva Perón Monument.

She was deposed along with all the other elected representatives by a right-wing military coup (the Revolución Libertadora) on 16 September 1955, and was imprisoned by the resulting military dictatorship of Pedro Eugenio Aramburu.

During the ban of Peronism (1955–1972) Larrauri became a major leader in the women's branch of the movement known as the "Peronist Resistance". When the ban on the Justicialist Party (Partido Justicialista) was lifted in 1972, she was a member of its Consejo Superior, representing the women's branch of the Peronist movement, which, at its core, took a position in opposition to Jorge Daniel Paladino. In 1972 she was part of the delegation which accompanied Juan Perón on his return to Argentina.

In 1973 she was re-elected as a national senator, and on 24 March 1976 was again deposed along with the other elected representatives when a right-wing military dictatorship under Jorge Rafael Videla overthrew Isabel Martínez de Perón in a coup d'état.

Discography