Transcript Ethnicity in Guatemala

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 Revitalization
Mixing 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