Haley Cohen Gilliland on her Journey to A Flower Traveled in my Blood

“I have always told my story exactly as it is, the truth before everything,” said Rosa Roisinblit, the main subject of A Flower Traveled in my Blood. 

Winner of the 2026 Juan E. Mendez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America, Author Haley Cohen Gilliland is being honored for her haunting telling of the history of Argentina’s Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo.

Gilliland had always loved writing, but after starting college at Yale, she was introduced to narrative nonfiction writing, which “fus[ed] the beauty and craft of fiction with fact-based storytelling,” and she was “immediately smitten.” She attributes this to her amazing professors who ignited her passion. 

After graduating from Yale, Gilliland found herself traveling to Argentina on a fellowship from the University. 

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“Occasionally I’ll have these really strong intuitive responses,” she said, “and the need to get back to Argentina was one of those.”

She originally planned to stay for only a year, research and freelance, and then come back to the United States. Instead, she was "serendipitously" offered a position as an Argentinian correspondent for the Economist, which led her to stay in the country for 4 years. 

It was during this time that she learned about the Abuelas. She previously had a basic knowledge of the dictatorship, but didn't know that the military had kidnapped pregnant women, waited until they gave birth, and then put the babies with other families, many of whom were related to the regime. 

“I was completely shocked and appalled,” she said. 

This pushed her to try and learn everything she could about the grandmothers, discovering that there was only one book about them in English. 

It never occurred to her to write the book herself. Living in Argentina, the grandmothers were known to be “totally iconic,” and everyone knew their story, giving Gilliland a false sense that the history was well known. 

After moving back to the U.S., she got pregnant herself, and the story came rushing back to her. When she talked to her American friends about the Abuelas, she realized that very few of them were familiar with the crimes the dictatorship had committed, leading her to start writing the book. 

“I wrote this book without an agenda… from a place that’s as journalistically neutral as possible,” Gilliland said. 

However, their story reveals some clear messages. These were women who were operating in an environment filled with immense danger. They were the first to stand up to the dictatorship. 

The first message is the power of collective action. The women who began the movement had no traditional forms of power, and many of the mothers had disappeared themselves as a result of their protest. 

“They were not politically influential. They didn’t have money,” she said. “At least at first, they didn’t have any outside support.”

But together, they became a force. “While individually and alone they were powerless,” she said, “banding together and working together as a collective, they were really powerful.”

Ultimately, they helped topple the dictatorship, hold them to account and fight back for what the dictatorship had stolen from them. 

The second message is about truth. 

“There's a powerful lesson just about how the truth will come out if there are people dedicated to surfacing it,” Gilliland said. 

Even decades later, the work continues. The grandchildren carry on the work the Abuelas started 50 years ago. The last grandchild was found just last year.  

“The fact that they are continuing to find grandchildren even in 2025,” she said, is a testament to their persistence, “to uncover the crimes that the dictatorship aimed to bury.”

One thing Gilliland uncovered was the Abuela’s revolutionary approach to justice. 

She interviewed Dr. Mary Claire King, the American geneticist who worked closely with the grandmothers, especially in the 80s and 90s. King pioneered a new test that allowed the Abuelas to connect with their stolen grandchildren without any blood from the disappeared generation — the parents of those stolen grandchildren. 

Before the Abuela’s work, genetics in the field of science had a very negative perception because of its association with eugenics. Quoting Dr. Victor Penchaszadeh, Gilliland stated that it was really the grandmothers who revived the public opinion of genetics in the human rights field because of their pioneering use of it to find their grandchildren.

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“I felt just an extreme level of vigilance the entire time that I was writing and reporting this book,” Gilliland said. 

She stated that she dedicated a lot of time to fact-checking herself, but also hiring fact-checkers for accountability. She spent four and a half years researching and reporting for the book. 

Her reporting was the most sensitive part of her work. Gilliland would apologize at the start of interviews for asking the men and women to relive some of the most traumatic moments in their lives.

“There's so much light and inspiration and hope in a lot of these stories, but it stems from absolute horror and trauma,” Gilliland said. 

However, she was empowered when every interviewee responded that while it is difficult to talk about, they “want to share the story with the widest audience possible,” and that this book was going to spread information about their mission. 

The biggest limitation she faced was talking to anyone from the military government. Many of the men were imprisoned, and the penitentiary system denied her interview request every time. She dropped off handwritten letters to the men living free, but never received a response.

“The military has really adhered to this cult of silence,” Gilliland said. 

The book also raises difficult questions about identity and family. Through her reporting, Gilliland said she found that there is no single way people respond to discovering their true identity.

“It’s a real mix,” she said. Some grandchildren cut ties with the families who raised them, others do not, and many fall somewhere in between.

One story that stood out to her was that of Victoria Donda, who maintained a relationship with the man who raised her even after learning about his role in the dictatorship-era violence.

“Love is not like a tap, a water tap that you can turn on and off,” Donda told her.

For Gilliland, these responses deepened the questions central to the book. Their stories pushed her to think about “what constitutes a family” and “who holds the right to identity.”

She also mentioned that one of the first services the Abuelas provide to the grandchildren is mental health support. 

“It's incredibly complicated, the journey of trying to make peace with everything is often very long, if not lifelong, for most of the grandchildren,” She said. 

In honor of Gilliland, DHRC will be holding a Juan E. Mendez book award ceremony. A reading and reception with Gilliland will take place April 7th at 5 pm in the Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall in Smith Warehouse Bay 4. 

“[Journalism] is an incredibly important way to sustain our democratic institutions. It allows you to continuously explore your curiosity,” She said.