Activism

*Pic taken from Los Angeles Times

While attending the University of California, Santa Cruz, she became active in the anti-Vietnam War peace movement and the Chicano Movement. While doing a field study in Chiapas, Mexico, she came into contact with many Argentines who told her of recent leftist political successes in their country. After graduating, Talamante decided to go to Argentina, and arrived shortly after the election of the Peronist Justicialist Party candidate for president, Héctor José Cámpora. She arrived in Azul in the Buenos Aires Province, and began working for Juventud Peronista, a poverty-relief agency, in one of the city's poorest sectors. After the death of Juan Perón, who had resumed control of the government of Argentina after Cámpora's resignation, the Peronist party split into left- and right-wing factions, with the conservatives supporting the government of Isabel Martínez de Perón, which banned political assembly. In November 1974, Talamante was arrested for political activity, and subsequently imprisoned and tortured.

The Olga Talamante Defense Committee petitioned Congress and the State Department for her release. By the time she was freed on March 27, 1976, Talamante had become nationally known. She returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she began working for the Argentine Commission for Human Rights. In her capacity as a representative of the Argentine Commission for Human Rights, she was involved in the case of United States vs. Horacio Daniel Lofredo.

After being released, Talamante continued working with other minority causes in the United States. She was Western branch Vice President of INROADS, an association aimed at helping Hispanic, African American and Native American business and engineering students to gain college scholarships.