History is often viewed from the top down; powerful elites are at center stage. This book instead examines a century-long process of socio-economic change from the bottom up, primarily through the experiences of one woman, Esperanza Ruiz (born in 1922), and four generations of her family. They tell stories about the nature and impacts of these changes on their lives and on their highland community in central Panama.

This view from the bottom up shows how ordinary people, through their choices and actions, are affected by and, in turn, can influence how history unfolds. Readers see Esperanza’s family as both victims and protagonists in their histories. Born into rural poverty with limits on their options, they still find small openings for actions to try to improve their circumstances. Sometimes successful, sometimes not, they survive or move ahead by drawing on their only abundant resource: each other.

Based on twenty field visits over the course of fifty years, Esperanza Speaks is the result of a dedicated anthropologist’s long-term engagement with the individuals of a community, and a beautiful example of ethnographic storytelling.