Cultural Resources: Guatemala: I, Rigoberta Menchú

Download as pdf or txt
Download as pdf or txt
You are on page 1of 2

CULTURAL RESOURCES: GUATEMALA

Time Among the Maya: Travels in Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico by Ronald Wright
The Maya of Central America have been called the Greeks of the New World. In
the first millennium A.D. they created the most intellectually and artistically
advanced civilization of the Americas. In ensuing centuries, as neighboring
empires fell in warfare and the Spanish Invasion, the Maya endured, shaken but
never destroyed.

Ronald Wright’s journey through time and space takes him not only to the lands
of the ancient Maya but also among the five million people who speak Mayan
languages and preserve a Mayan identity today. Embracing history, politics,
anthropology, and literature, Time Among the Maya is both a fascinating travel
memoir and the study of a civilization. (from the back cover, recommended by
Laura Hofer’s husband)

I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala by Rigoberta Menchu Tum


I, Rigoberta Menchu is one of those books which seems to be overshadowed by
controversy. A Quiche Mayan woman of Guatemala, Rigoberta Menchu told her
story orally to anthropologist Elisabeth Burgos-Debray in Paris in 1982. Burgos-
Debray transcribed the story and published it in Spanish in 1983; Ann Wright's
English translation appeared in 1984. The book, which both gave a voice to the
Native American culture of Guatemala and exposed the brutality of Guatemala's
civil war, became an international sensation. Menchu received the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1992.

Of special interest are her descriptions of the interactions among the diverse
ethnic groups of Guatemala, her account of Quiche Mayan religious beliefs and
practices, and her descriptions of such everyday activities as making tortillas.
Particularly fascinating is her account of how Guatemalan revolutionaries
interpreted parts of the Bible in order to aid their struggle; at the end of Chapter
XVII she describes the Bible as the "main weapon" of her comrades.

Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans by David Stoll
In 1992, a Guatemalan peasant named Rigoberta Menchú received the Nobel
Peace Prize for her work in pressing the civil rights claims of her country's
indigenous peoples. A decade earlier, her memoir, I, Rigoberta Menchú, had
appeared, and it was immediately welcomed in the nascent canon of multicultural
literary and anthropological writings that has since become standard in the
academy. In that memoir, Menchú gives a highly specific account of the then-
ruling military government's war against tribal, rural people, making claims that
she held a leadership role in the resistance, the Guerrilla Army of the Poor. In a
work certain to incite controversy, Middlebury College anthropologist David Stoll
questions the veracity of those claims, interviewing many of the people who
appeared in her memoir and offering contrary testimony. His findings, Stoll
notes, do not discount the real violence visited by the Guatemalan government on
its subjects.

Sweet Waist of America by Anthony Daniels


Sweet Waist is a very honest, yet loving portrayal (as much as I can tell after only
5 chapters) of Guatemala that holds up for examination some of the political and
cultural touchstones there of the last century or so. The author wants to celebrate
the beauty of the country that has been hidden amongst the bloodshed. As he puts
it, "...if love of beauty is to be postponed until all is right with the world, then
surely we shall create only hell on earth." It was written in the early 90's, before
the peace accords became a reality, but it's a fascinating narrative of the country
written by an American who traveled to Guatemala for a short visit and wound up
staying 8 months and considers it a second home. (Recommended by an adoptive
parent in process in Guatemala.)

Web sites to learn more about Guatemala:

http://www.enjoyguatemala.com/
http://www.quetzalnet.com/Tourism.html

You might also like