Rigoberta Menchú

I, Rigoberta Menchu An Indian Woman in Guatemala I recently finished reading I, Rigoberta Menchu for another class I am taking. It was written by Rigoberta Menchu and was published in 1983. I felt like this was a good book to review in light of reading about Women’s Rights and Poverty in the modules. Take a person out of their element and force them into an environment that is far from their norm, and typically you’d expect them to fail. “I was incapable of disobedience. And those employers exploited my obedience. They took advantage of my innocence.”(Menchu, 108) I have 5 sisters, and could not imagine them going through any of what we have covered in this class or even the things that Rigoberta experienced. When first moving here from American…

them. Rigoberta Menchú is an Indian woman from Guatemala who was constantly discriminated aginst and terrorized for being Indian. Rigoberta and her community got tired of being pushed around as if they were nothing. The discrimination and terrorism from the Ladinos became too much for the Indians that they had to defend themselves, and they began to use their knowledge to help their community survive. Rigoberta used the Ladinos’ weapons and mistreatment against them, so that she and other…

Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a Mayan Quiche’ activist born in 1959 in Chimel, a small Mayan community of the highlands of Guatemala. When Rigoberta was growing up she “traveled alongside her father, Vincente Menchú, from a community to community teaching rural compassions their rights and encouraging them to organize.” In 1992 Roberta Menchú received the Novel Peace Prize for her work within the indigenous community and shortly after she opens a foundation that is called Rigoberta Menchú Tum…

Rigoberta Menchu’s book outlines her experience, giving a first hand account of the suppression, exploitation, and death faced by indigenous Guatemalans, at the hands of a militarized government. She describes how the economic disparity between wealthy landowners and indigenous people create this suppression, that not only threatens their land, but their entire culture. This testimonial placed Menchu in the spotlight, and was met with attempts to discredit her account. I will discuss these…

To me this quote means that as human beings become increasingly aware of the diversity that exists throughout the globe and within our own country, we begin to acknowledge and respect one another, and through this we are one step closer in achieving peace within our country and our world. For starters, I came from a country which failed time and time again to see and understand this concept Rigoberta Menchú so intricately devised into words. Mexico, in all of its natural beauty and ancient…

The Importance of Historical Memory Through Rigoberta Menchu’s testimony in I, Rigoberta Menchu, Menchu was able to shed light on many injustices, cultural traditions, and the overall daily life of a Mayan Indian in Guatemala. For the most part, Menchu gives readers an idea of what it was like to live in the Altiplano, a mountainous region in Guatemala, as well as the traditions many had to follow for their rite of passage. In doing so, Menchu gives readers context behind her decisions,…

Human rights is an issue that still remains at debate today. There has always been a gap between the rich and the poor. The gap we see in America versus the gap that is described by Rigoberta has a heartbreaking difference. When thinking about human rights in America, I think of the difference from owning a mansion and a two story house. Of course, there is a very clear income and work ethic difference. I think of the rich hardly working and the poor/middle class working hard for everything they…

Rigoberta Menchú became one of the most controversial Nobel Peace Prize winners when her testimony was put under a microscope and discrepancies were found by multiple people working in academia. This is given in the edited manuscript of her verbal testimony in the book I, Rigoberta Menchú, as it presents itself as a truth of her life, although that’s debatable. Blame could be put on her editor, Elizabeth Burgos, herself, or the Guatemalan people who knew her personally that gave their own…

As unethical and malicious the tactic is, a common malpractice of authorities in maintaining dominance and control of a community is through violence. I, Rigoberta Menchú, is an autobiography of a poor Guatemalan woman whose family was oppressed by light-skinned landowners and brutalized by right-wing soldiers. In this novel, the government is taking control of Menchú’s homeland in order to contain the communists that can eventually pose as a threat to their political beliefs. Good Kings Bad…

The book is translated from Spanish so we know she accomplishes that goal before we even get further into her story. Rigoberta works as a maid in Guatemala City and it treated worse than the house pet. Fortunately, she has the influence of Candelaria to help her. When the peasant Unity Committee is formed, Rigoberta’s whole family is involved. As the fight for freedom goes on, most of them pay the ultimate price for their cause. Her brother is tortured and killed in front of her family. Her…