Eva Perón

María Eva Duarte de Perón (Spanish pronunciation: [maˈɾi.a ˈeβa ˈðwarte ðe peˈɾon]; née María Eva Duarte; 7 May 1919 – 26 July 1952), better known as Eva Perón or by the nickname Evita (Spanish: [eˈβita]), was an Argentine politician, activist, actress, and philanthropist who served as First Lady of Argentina from June 1946 until her death in July 1952, as the wife of Argentine President Juan Perón. She was born in poverty in the rural village of Los Toldos, in the Pampas, as the youngest of five children. In 1934, at the age of 15, she moved to the nation's capital of Buenos Aires to pursue a career as a stage, radio, and film actress. She married Perón in 1945, when he was still an army colonel, and was propelled onto the political stage when he became President in 1946. She became a central figure of Peronism and Argentine culture because of the Eva Perón Foundation, a charitable organization perceived by many Argentinians as highly impactful.

She met Colonel Juan Perón on 22 January 1944 during a charity event at the Luna Park Stadium to benefit the victims of an earthquake in San Juan, Argentina. The two were married the following year. Juan Perón was elected President of Argentina in June 1946; during the next six years, Eva Perón became powerful within the pro-Peronist trade unions, primarily for speaking on behalf of labor rights. She also ran the Ministries of Labor and Health, founded and ran the charitable Eva Perón Foundation, championed women's suffrage in Argentina, and founded and ran the nation's first large-scale female political party, the Female Peronist Party.

In 1951, Eva Perón announced her candidacy for the Peronist nomination for the office of Vice President of Argentina, receiving great support from the Peronist political base, low-income and working-class Argentines who were referred to as descamisados or "shirtless ones" (similar to the term sans-culottes during the French Revolution). Opposition from the nation's military and bourgeoisie, coupled with her declining health, ultimately forced her to withdraw her candidacy. In 1952, shortly before her death from cancer at 33, Eva Perón was given the title of "Spiritual Leader of the Nation of Argentina" by the Argentine Congress. She was given a state funeral upon her death, a prerogative generally reserved for heads of state.

Eva Perón has become a part of international popular culture, most famously as the subject of the musical Evita (1976). Cristina Álvarez Rodríguez has said that Eva Perón has never left the collective consciousness of Argentines. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the second female president of Argentina (after Juan Perón's third wife Isabel Perón), claims that women of her generation owe a debt to Eva Perón for "her example of passion and combativeness".

Eva Perón's 1951 biography, La Razón de mi Vida, contains no dates or references to childhood occurrences, and does not list the location of her birth or her name at birth. According to Junín's civil registry, a birth certificate shows that one María Eva Duarte was born on May 7, 1919. Her baptismal certificate lists the date of birth as May 7, 1919 under the name Eva María Ibarguren. It is thought that in 1945 the adult Eva Perón created a forgery of her birth certificate for her marriage.^{[page needed]}

Eva Perón spent her childhood in Junín, Buenos Aires province. Her father, Juan Duarte Manechena Etchegoyen (1872—1926), was descended from French Basque immigrants. Her mother, Juana Ibarguren Nuñez (1894—1971), was descended from Spanish Basque immigrants. Juan Duarte, a wealthy rancher from nearby Chivilcoy, already had a wife Adela D'Uhart and family there. At that time in rural Argentina, it was not uncommon for a wealthy man to have several families.

When Perón was a year old, Duarte returned permanently to his legal family, leaving Juana Ibarguren and her children in abject poverty. They were forced to move to the poorest area of Junín. Los Toldos was a village in the dusty region of Las Pampas, with a reputation as a desolate place of poverty. To support herself and her children, Ibarguren sewed clothes for neighbors. The family was stigmatized by the abandonment of the father and by the illegitimate status of the children under Argentine law, and was consequently somewhat isolated. A desire to expunge this part of her life might have been a motivation for Perón to arrange the destruction of her original birth certificate in 1945.^{[page needed]}

When Duarte suddenly died, and Ibarguren and their children sought to attend his funeral, there was conflict. Although Ibarguren and the children were permitted to enter and pay their respects, they were promptly directed out of the church. Duarte's widow did not want her late husband's mistress and children at the funeral. As she was the legitimate wife, her orders were respected.