Hard Copy: From The Ashes of Santiago

Author: Erika Tapia Schrieber, Daughter of Luis Omar Tapia, written in English

Note from the Author:

My father left everything behind. I wrote it all down.

In 1973, Augusto Pinochet's military coup ended Salvador Allende's government and fractured thousands of Chilean families overnight. My father was one of the people who had to run. He arrived in the United States as a political refugee with nothing and built a life here from scratch, with the particular determination of someone who knows that everything can disappear in a moment.

I wrote his story because it deserved to exist on paper. Because my kids deserved to know where they come from. And because the lessons woven through his life, about resourcefulness, resilience, and never letting anything of value go to waste, are the same lessons that shaped everything I've built.

This one is personal. I hope it finds the people who need it. With love, E.T. Schrieber