Titled Guardianas de la trama, the book was launched at the Croatian Club in Santiago. Tatiana Mimiza, who organised the event, said the publication served as a bridge between generations and paid tribute to families and to the women whose memories the network wanted to preserve.
The book was produced as part of the CroActivas project, a network bringing together around 1,080 women of Croatian descent across Latin America. It was also presented at the Buenos Aires International Book Fair in May.
More than 800,000 Croats and their descendants live in Latin America, including about 200,000 in Chile. Croatian migrants settled in the region during the 19th and 20th centuries for economic and political reasons.
Mimiza said the book included the story of her grandmother, Bionda, who left Croatia at the age of 17 and crossed the Atlantic without knowing what awaited her on the other side of the world.
Bionda settled in the town of Porvenir in Chile's Tierra del Fuego region, where she met her future husband, Božo Mimica, another Croatian immigrant. Mimiza said the couple went on to build a family and a life founded on hard work and integrity.
She added that every Croatian surname concealed a story waiting to be told, prompting CroActivas to launch a literary competition last year to collect women's migration stories from across Latin America.
According to the network, the stories reflect family memories, Croatian traditions, migration experiences and the elements that have helped preserve Croatian identity across generations.
The book was edited by Argentine author Diana Arias, whose two novels explore the experiences of immigrants to Argentina in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Arias said after the book's presentation in Zagreb in March that the publication brought back to Croatia the voices of women who had proudly preserved the identity and culture of their ancestors while living abroad.