Biography
She was born in Santiago on 1 February 1932,the daughter of Humberto Rojas Torres and Amelia Alfaro. She married Antenor Acuña Castillo on 14 April 1951,and they had five children:Amelia,Rosa,Herlans,Luis Emilio,and Vilma.
She moved to Tocopilla in 1949,where she became an active Communist Party (PC) militant and social organizer. In 1952,she founded the first Mothers’Center in the Tocopilla Department,named «Gabriela Mistral»,in response to public health issues affecting local mothers. In the late 1950s,she represented the province at the Latin American Congress of Women and during the 1960s,she was a prominent neighborhood council leader.
Having joined the PC in 1959 (after being a sympathizer since 1956),she held the position of women's leader in the regional Committee of the Party in Antofagasta until 1973,and was also a leader of its Women's Union branch. She actively participated in Salvador Allende's presidential campaigns in 1958,1964,and 1970,serving as president of the Northern Women's Command.
On 7 November 1970,at the age of 38,President Allende appointed her Governor of the Tocopilla Department—the first woman to hold that post in the area. During her tenure,she prioritized post-earthquake school reconstruction,child and mother welfare,and promoted agrarian reform programs in the Quillagua Valley to support small farmers.
In the 1973 parliamentary elections,she was elected Deputy for the 2nd Departmental Group (Antofagasta,Tocopilla,El Loa,and Taltal) with over 12,000 votes,ranking third overall and second within the Unidad Popular list. She joined the Permanent Committee on Public Health in Congress,but her mandate was halted by the military coup of 11 September 1973 and the subsequent dissolution of the National Congress via Decree-Law No. 27.
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