Are there any latinoamericanistas in the house? I have been incredibly remiss with keeping up with my field of study .... can you believe it?

Eventhough, I walked away from a PhD in Latin American Literature after completing a BA and MA in Latin American and Hispanic Studies at New York University. I spent 10 years doing research, writing and teaching about the region. For crying out loud, I even taught Brazilian literature and have publised in Spanish and Portuguese! It's embarrasing this piece of news is coming to me as a surprise :

[via Chile's woman president-elect wins praise : Mail & Guardian Online]:

Socialist president-elect Michelle Bachelet was praised on Monday as a symbol of reconciliation who can help Chile come to terms with its traumatic political past.

Bachelet, who was imprisoned and tortured under the right-wing dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, decisively beat her conservative challenger, multimillionaire businessman Sebastian Pinera, in Sunday's election. With 97,5% of about 7,2-million votes counted, Bachelet had 53,4% of the official vote count to Pinera's 46,5%.

Bachelet's centre-left coalition has governed Chile since the end of Pinochet's 17-year dictatorship in 1990.

A 22-year-old medical student when Pinochet's led a coup 1973, Chile's president-to-be was arrested along with her mother and forced into five years of exile.

"She had the capacity for reconciliation in spite of the pains she had to suffer," Alejandro Goic, president of Chile's Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops, said on Monday after meeting Bachelet along with other clerics.

Santiago Archbishop Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuris praised her for "overcoming hatred".

"The success of Mrs Bachelet would be the success of the entire country," he added.

In a victory speech on Sunday night, Bachelet recalled her imprisonment and torture under Pinochet, saying that "violence entered my life and destroyed what I loved".

Her father, air force General Alberto Bachelet, opposed Pinochet and died in prison of a heart attack triggered by torture, according to Bachelet.

"Because I was the victim of hatred, I have dedicated my life to reverse that hatred and turn it into understanding, tolerance and -- why not say it -- into love," she said. "You can love justice and being generous at the same time."

Bachelet, a single mother of three, will join other leftist leaders in the region, including Venezuela's Hugo Ch�vez and newly elected Evo Morales of Bolivia, but indicated she will not bring about radical change to the South American country of 16-million.

"We will continue to walk the same road," she said in her victory speech on Sunday, making it clear she intends to maintain the coalition's free-market economic polices that have turned Chile's economy into one of the region's strongest.

We have now Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Ms. Bachelet, all left wing politicians. Although many scream "NO", I am going to put Lula from Brazil in that category as well. Can you imagine the PRI losing in Mexico? Can you imagine what that would do to the region?

All lationamericanistas in the house, please report with the blogdiva.

On other feminists news, Liberia has a woman president as well, Harvard educated Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. I am curious about her because as I understand she just recently became a born-again Christian (???); affecting the reproductive rights policies not only of her country but the region?

And then there's Merkel who just got elected as Prime Minister of Germany.

How many women heads of state are out there? Please use the comments to work on that and/or go to our newly minted culturekitchen WIKI and open a working page over there, so we all can help in the research and editing process.