Goodbye to Mierense Isabel Tejerina, first democratic councilor of Santander – Nortes | Focused on the periphery

This Saturday he died in Santander Isabel Tejerinaprofessor of Didactics of Language and Literature at the University of Cantabriaand a tireless fighter for social justice since the times of anti-Francoism.

Born in 1949 in Mieresin a large, religious and middle-class family, Tejerina could not study journalism for economic reasons, so she leaned toward Romance Philologya degree that did exist in the University of Oviedowhere he soon stood out as a student and cultural activist, in the university theater.

The Vietnam War, intellectual curiosity, the influence of his brother Gonzalo and the abandonment of religious faith, decisively influenced his left-wing politicization in the late 1960s, breaking with the conservative tradition of his family.

His militancy started in Oviedoin the clandestine Popular Liberation Frontgerm of the so-called “new left” in Spainand a seedbed for other political organizations. After the dissolution of the party, in 1969, he joined the Maoist Communist Party of Spain (international)later called Spanish Labor Partyof which she would become one of its main leaders in Cantabriawhere he moved after finishing his degree.

At the age of 22, she began working as a high school teacher at the Institute of Torrelavegafrom which she was fired for leading a strike by non-tenured teachers, the interim ones at that time. He later entered the Teaching School of Santanderwhere he would end up retiring. In the Cantabrian capital he participated in the Democratic Women’s Association and she was part of it with her husband, Felix Martinezfrom the neighborhood association of the neighborhood of The Encinawithin the framework of a militancy that in those years meant total and permanent dedication.

Arrested on different occasions for her political activism, during the Transition she represented the PTE in the Democratic Council of Cantabrialeading his municipal candidacy in Santander in the 1979 elections. The list, supported by the Revolutionary Workers Organizationobtained 6% of the votes and one seat, thus making Tejerina the first democratic councilor of the Santander City Council.

Very active as a spokesperson for neighborhood struggles, in 1982 she was expelled from the Santander City Council, governed by the right-wing Juan Hormaecheafor participating in the protest against the eviction of a family that occupied a social apartment that had been empty for a decade. In a biographical interview, Tejerina recognized that despite the injustice of his expulsion, on a personal level it represented a “liberation”, since his party had disappeared by then, and he barely had the means and support to carry out his work in the opposition, which he combined with his job and raising two children.

After the dissolution of the ephemeral Party of the workersfounded after the unification of the PTE and the ORT, abandoned party militancy, but not social and cultural activism. She was one of the promoters of the association University and Solidaritythe platform Citizenship against health exclusion wave Cantabrian assembly in defense of freedoms.

In the last years of his life, he recovered his passion for theater with the founding of the group “Unos seguirs”, together with Juan Manuel Freireand in which she would work as both actress and director.

Mother of two daughters, María and Anjana, she leaves behind various publications on didactics and pedagogy, literature and some memoirs. In 2022 she was awarded the prize Mierenses in the Worldgranted within the framework of the festivities of San Xuan. People and organizations from the Santander and Cantabrian left have expressed their condolences these days for the death of a woman who left a great mark on the University and the social movements of her host land.