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Rigoberta Mench ú Tum

Rigoberta Mench ú 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 Mench ú.

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Rigoberta Mench ú Tum

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  1. 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

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. huipil (p’ot): blousecorte (uq):skirtfaja (ximbal): belt

  7. 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

  8. Elaborate Traje

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

  10. Weaving on a Backstrap Loom

  11. 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

  12. 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)

  13. Maya Revitalization Mixing of traje: • Solidarity • Status • Admire beauty of clothing • Men’s bomber jackets symbolic of participation in Maya movement in 1990s

  14. 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

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