Rigoberta Menchú Tum

•Born in 1959 in

Guatemala’s

department of El Quiche

•Native language

is Quiche (K’iche)

•Mountainous topography of Quiche: site of much guerilla activity and subsequent army repression

I, Rigoberta Menchú

• Menchú and her family participated in CUC (Peasant Union Committee)

– Brother tortured and killed by army in 1979

– Father (Vicente Menchú) killed in Spanish embassy fire in 1980

– Mother was raped, tortured, and killed by the army later that year

– Menchú (in her early 20s) went into hiding and then went to Mexico in exile

I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala (1983)

• While living in exile in Mexico, Menchú gave a testimonial account of Guatemala’s civil war to Elisabeth Burgos Debray

• David Stoll critique: Menchú could not have been eye-witness, account is unreliable

• 1992: Menchú awarded Nobel Peace Prize (500th anniversary of Columbus arrival to the Americas)

• Activism towards recognition of indigenous rights throughout the Americas

• Presidential candidate in 2007

Ethnic Identity Markers in Guatemala

• Language– not easily learned or assumed– generally requires intense interaction with

native speakers

• Dress– Marker of ethnicity: marks one as indigenous

(traje) or ladino (Western clothing)– more fluid than language

• Religion, surnames, phenotype

huipil (p’ot): blouse

corte (uq):skirt

faja (ximbal): belt

Dress

• Dress and fluidity of identity: can emphasize and present different aspects of identity

• Place specific: traje associated with ethnic group and with specific towns

• Traje also indicates wealth, age, religion, worldliness of wearer

Elaborate Traje

Cultural Significance of Weaving•Connects modern women to pre-Conquest ancestors•Symbolic of Maya women’s work in the household

Weaving on a Backstrap Loom

Men’s Traje

• Tecpan region: white pants, blue or white shirt, dark wool jacket, hat, sandals

• Use of traje disappearing among men

–Greater participation in non-Maya world

Declining Use of Traje

• Kaqchikel girls not learning how to weave because spend more time on schoolwork

• Globalization:

– Influence of television that gives status to Western clothing (shorts, miniskirts, jeans)

– Ropa americana (second-hand clothing from US sold cheaply in Latin America)

Maya RevitalizationMixing of traje:

– Solidarity

– Status

– Admire beauty of clothing

– Men’s bomber jackets symbolic of participation in Maya movement in 1990s

Maya Movement

• Cultural revitalization: encourage women to use traje and learn to weave

• Why don’t men return to using traje?

– Male participation in non-Maya world

– Impossibility to hide one’s identity in traje

– Did not grow up wearing traje