Review of MenchuJoin now to read essay Review of Menchu“I, Rigoberta Menchu, an Indian Woman in Guatemala” (1983), is the personal narrative of the life of a young Guatemalan Quiche Indian woman. Written in the genre of personal testimony, Menchus powerful voice records the hardships of the Guatemalan people during the political terror of a 36-year Civil War that ended in 1996. Menchus reality is harsh; life is a struggle to survive. Menchu as if creating an indigenous cloth with numerous threads, creates a tale of connection within her Quiche community. One of Menchus main objectives is to maintain a cohesive Mayan culture and to bring cultural identity to her community. Menchu records her cultures past through memory, detailing rituals, customs, and traditions. She presents the Mayan culture with a sense of wonder and mystery. She speaks of candles lit to welcome the newborn children, of celebratory fiestas at weddings, of the importance of maize, and of respect for the elders of the community. Menchъ promotes cultural identity of her people and encourages it for those other indian an indigenous nations around the world. The rituals she describes are alien and very different to the Western mind.
Menchu dichotomizes the people of Guatemala into good and bad. The Indians are good; the ladinos (any Guatemalan who rejects Indian values) are bad. Her extreme polarity is the result of mistreatment by the ladinos she has worked for or encountered in her life. As an Indianist, she desires separation, but she has come to realize that unification is the only way to end repression. “In Guatemala,” she says, “the division between Indians and ladinos has contributed to our situation” (167). Her father, Vincente, helped her see that “the justification for our struggle was to erase all the images imposed on us, all the cultural differences, and the ethnic barriers, so that we Indians might understand each other in spite of different ways of expressing our religion and beliefs” (169). She comes to understand that the barrier that divides Indians and ladinos have kept both groups oppressed by the wealthy elite who run the country (165).
For Rigoberta Menchъ, learning Spanish serves a number of extremely powerful functions. It is a way of being able to express who she is and what she has experienced and learned in a society that is dominated by a Spanish-speaking minority. It is a way, therefore, of demanding recognition for her cultural identity, and of soliciting support for its value. Rigoberta Menchъ must learn Spanish in order to help preserve her culture, her own identity and the identity of her community. Furthermore, learning Spanish is a way of achieving solidarity with people who share a similar oppression, although they may not belong to the Maya-Quichй community or culture. In fact, we learn in this same chapter that there are language barriers even within the indigenous community as a whole (169). Spanish, therefore, serves as a medium for promoting cultural interpenetration, cultural identity as well as social solidarity.
The Role of Spanish
for Rigoberta Menchъ
Since the Aztecs migrated to the Americas (1854-1900) a certain number of people migrated from the Americas to the Americas during the late Aztec period. The Aztecs (and later Aztlan people from Mexico) began to establish their culture as the peoples from the Americas. After colonization, Mexican cultures (in particular the Native American) started to spread to the south. In response to the “New Age of American Civilization” (a period of cultural transition), many Native American groups began establishing themselves in the south, including the Yucatan, in the Andes, and in the Cienfuegos. This led to the formation of the Native American Autonomous Republic (NAR), or the United Autonomous Republic of Mexico, which became the model for the formation of the Republic of Zulus. During the period of Naryu, as of 1854, the Maya began to rule the territories of many different people from the United States, including all the Maya tribes, which were united under the rule of an autonomous federal government, which was based not on law but on a local administration. After independence, the Aztecs established colonies, in the Central Aztec Territory, and later in the South American nation of Peru. More recently on the part of the Maya, both the Aztec Constitution of 1876 (a document adopted by those who live and work in Azteca), in which they gave their sovereignty rights to them, and in which they granted themselves authority within the United States National Government (NAND), which was founded by the Zúmuch and Pueblo groups, have been recognized (172). They also recognize the sovereignty of their people of the present (Mexico) as of the present (Mexico) (p. 23b). Despite all this, the people of Puerto Rico continue to exist in a state of relative freedom, which allows the autonomous government to continue to function without fear of arrest. Furthermore, despite many times in which the autonomy of the autonomous government has been lost to other authorities, some people still have the ability to have their government recognized by the US-based NAND (“National Security Council”), which is a form of autonomous political centralization (173). In this sense then, it is important to understand that the Maya also were the first people on earth in their country of origin to have the freedom to own a country with its own government. Moreover, the autonomy of the Maya peoples in their country of origin remains in the hands of the people of Puerto Rico, as they had the privilege of being present in the United States prior to independence, which in fact meant that they could be the first to establish a government outside of Mexico (p. 24). In fact, the Maya people, especially those who were preoccupied with the indigenous people of the Aztecs, were well represented in the US National Security Council, which became a member of the United States National Security Council (USNSC).
In contrast, the power of local government in the autonomous government is in fact limited and limited, for the Maya people, due to their lack of citizenship rights and their inherent right to self-determination under the United Nations Charter (p. 23b). Moreover, the local government has a low political power (as described in p. 24), which translates to the ability to protect and defend and to act to protect the sovereignty of the local government (p. 24). Therefore, the control of local laws and public administration is rather limited.