Editor’s note: The Home Again series shares stories of University of Delaware faculty who have led study abroad programs to their home countries, offering unique perspectives and personal experiences to students.
Visiting the Evita Museum in Buenos Aires during a 2003 study abroad program in Argentina, University of Delaware faculty member Krystyna Musik wasn’t happy with how the tour guide talked about Eva Perón, sharing only positive views of the Argentinian icon and ignoring negative aspects of her complicated legacy.
“I told him, ‘You’re just telling us what you read in the books. I lived through it, so please move over,’” Musik said, taking it upon herself to instruct the student group. It wasn’t the only time during the program that Musik drew on her personal experiences to provide students with a deeper understanding of Argentine history and culture.
Musik, an instructor of Spanish, is one of three UD faculty members who have directed the most study abroad programs in University history, having led more than 30 programs to Chile, Spain, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Greece. In 2015 she was named the Center for Global Programs and Services’ faculty director of the year.
In leading programs in Argentina, Musik offered perspectives on how governments do not always reflect the populations they represent, especially as she directly experienced the turbulence of Argentinian president Juan Perón’s first term.
“People are not their government or the politicians,” Musik said. “ I grew up in socialism, and I know how it really was. On paper it’s nice, but in reality it doesn’t work.”
Perón was an army colonel who became president of Argentina in 1946. He won a second term in 1952, was overthrown by a military coup in 1955, and was elected a third time in 1973, serving until his death in 1974.
His political ideology, Peronism, focused on economic nationalism and improving social benefits to the working class, yet his regime was also marked by corruption and harsh suppression of opposing views.
His influence continues today through the Justicialist Party, one of the country’s major political parties.
Perón and his wife, Eva, remain divisive figures in Argentina, both adored and reviled for their impact on the nation.
“I remember after Evita died [in 1952] I knew something was happening in the government because when I left home to go to school one morning, a soldier was driving the street car and another one stood in the back with a rifle,” Musik said. Later on, the family, who lived just a few metro stops from the Casa Rosada presidential palace, could hear bombs dropping as the military attempted to oust Perón.