Mónica Baltodano was a commander of the guerrilla revolutionary group known as the Sandinista National Liberation Front during the Nicaraguan Revolution.

[1] Her family moved to Managua in 1972 when her mother split from her father due to what she saw as a lack of acceptance of her involvement in the war.

[4] Baltodano became politically involved in high school when she worked on the campaign to free Doris Tijerino, a Sandinista revolutionary, from prison.

[1] Baltodano went underground with the Sandinista movement in 1974, compelled to action by the nation's declining political and economic conditions.

[1] In 1994 she was elected to the national directorate of the SNLF as part of a movement to increase women's representation at the highest levels of the SNLF; other women elected at the same time included Dorotea Wilson, Mirna Cunningham, Benigna Mendiola and Dora Maria Tellez.