No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

Jimmy Espinoza is a predator, seeking out young, vulnerable, often fatherless girls to prey upon in his work as a pimp in San Francisco: “His violence […] was against the women who worked for him and the women who had relationships with him, against rival gang members, against just about anyone who looked at him in a way he didn’t like. Rape was a weapon in his arsenal” (107). Now in prison, Espinoza has turned his energy towards sparing women the very violence he used to inflict on them.

Three pivotal occurrences in Espinoza’s life have led him to where he is. Before discussing these, however, Snyder shifts focus to Hamish Sinclair, an 85-year-old man in San Francisco. Sinclair is Scottish, and was working in an Irish B&B when he met an American filmmaker who invited him to come to the US. There he became a social activist, which led him to Detroit, where he concentrated his efforts on bettering the existence of autoworkers.

In 1975, a group of female autoworkers came to Sinclair for the same kind of help he was providing the men. Sinclair was willing, but many of the male autoworkers were vehemently opposed to including women in their efforts.