Local support will help Nestora Salgado return from a Mexican jail
Nestora Salgado, a 42-year-old mother of three from Renton, rots away in a Mexican federal prison. Her alleged crime? Kidnapping.
Salgado immigrated to America more than 20 years ago with hopes of a better future. And she found it. She not only survived but thrived, became a citizen and drank from the American ideal of liberty and justice for all.
Her hometown of Olinala in the state of Guerrero has historically been a sanctuary for bandits and guerrillas, and today it’s on the rugged frontier of the drug wars that plunder the country and murder Mexicans. In this region 43 students went missing last year and, after DNA testing revealed that charred remains belonged to at least one of them, all are presumed dead.
Nestora, while thriving in America, continued to visit her hometown with gifts of aid and words of encouragement. She witnessed the brutality of the gangs and their protectors, members of a corrupted government.
What started as social aid became increasingly focused on empowering women and teaching civil rights. Nestora helped the people in Olinala reclaim a constitutional right to organize community policing. She was elected to lead this movement, crime plummeted and fear receded. Women were empowered to resist a culture of domestic violence. Hope came alive.
But evil never sleeps. The more citizens understood they were in the right, the more the entrenched powers began to fight. The local authorities were furious with Salgado when her community policing organization began making arrests. After a confrontation with the sheriff, Nestora and several others were accused of kidnapping, arrested by the federal military and are currently incarcerated in a maximum security prison.
All of this despite a federal court dismissing the charges and ordering her release. All of this despite the efforts of Rep. Adam Smith, D-Renton, Renton Mayor Denis Law, the Renton City Council, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Earl Anthony Wayne, and thousands of petition signers who’ve made appeals for her release. All of this because a woman of dual citizenship did not want to forget her heritage and abandon her people.
What began as a mission of mercy, bringing clothing, food and small financial assistance to neighbors, became a lesson in justice, basic human rights and dignity. Light came into darkness, but today the darkness governs the light.
I share this story because you can help by sending support statements to Renton City Council at rentonwa.gov. Send it to the attention of councilmembers Greg Taylor and Ruth Perez. It’s just a nudge but we must keep pushing until we win.