Rigoberta Menchú Tum (; born 9 January 1959) is a K'iche' Guatemalan human rights activist, feminist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the rights of Guatemala's Indigenous peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996), and to promoting Indigenous rights internationally.

She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, was named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 1996, and received the Prince of Asturias Award in 1998. She is the subject of the testimonial biography I, Rigoberta Menchú (1983), and author of the autobiographical work Crossing Borders (1998). Menchú founded the country's first indigenous political party, Winaq, and ran as its candidate for president of Guatemala in the 2007 and 2011 presidential elections.

Personal life

Rigoberta Menchú was born to a poor Indigenous family of K'iche' Maya descent in Laj Chimel, a rural area in the north-central Guatemalan department of El Quiché. Her family was one of many Indigenous families who could not sustain themselves on the small pieces of land they were left with after the Spanish conquest of Guatemala. Menchú's mother began her career as a midwife at age sixteen and continued to practice using traditional medicinal plants until she was murdered at age 43. Her father was a prominent activist for the rights of Indigenous farmers in Guatemala. Menchú considers herself to be the perfect mix of both her parents. In January 2015, Pedro García Arredondo, a former police commander of the Guatemalan Army who later served as the chief of the now defunct National Police (Policía Nacional, PN), was convicted of attempted murder and crimes against humanity for his role in the embassy attack; Arrendondo was also previously convicted in 2012 of ordering the enforced disappearance of agronomy student Édgar Enrique Sáenz Calito during the country's long-running internal armed conflict.

In 1995, Menchú married Ángel Canil, a Guatemalan, in a Mayan ceremony. They had a Catholic wedding in January 1998; at that time they also buried their son Tz'unun ("hummingbird" in K’iche’ Maya), who had died after being born prematurely in December. They adopted a son, Mash Nahual Ja' ("Spirit of Water").

Menchú featured prominently in the 1983 documentary When the Mountains Tremble, directed by Newton Thomas Sigel and Pamela Yates.

She lives with her family in the municipality of San Pedro Jocopilas, Quiché Department, northwest of Guatemala City, in the heartland of the Kʼicheʼ people.

In 2025, Menchú became a Mexican citizen.

Connections to the Guatemalan civil war

Following military coups that started with the CIA-orchestrated removal of President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, the Cuban revolution of 1959, and the Che Guevara's commitment to create as many Vietnams as he could, the U.S. moved to condone and often support authoritarian rule in the name of national security. The Guatemalan Civil War lasted from 1962 to 1996 and was provoked by social, economic, and political inequality. An estimated 250,000 people were assassinated, including 50,000 desaparecidos, and hundreds of thousands of displaced individuals, either at the hands of the armed forces or the militarized civilians knows as Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil (Civil Defense Patrols).

Guatemalan activism

From a young age, Menchú was active alongside her father. Together they advocated for the rights of Indigenous farmers through the Committee for Peasant Unity. Menchú believes that the roots of Indigenous oppression in Guatemala stem from issues of exploitation and colonial land ownership, and in Women were targets of physical and sexual violence at the hands of the military.

In 1981, Menchú was exiled and escaped to Mexico where she found refuge in the home of a Catholic bishop in Chiapas. Menchú continued to organize resistance to oppression in Guatemala and organize the struggle for Indigenous rights by co-founding the United Republic of Guatemalan Opposition. Tens of thousands of people, mostly indigenous Maya people, fled to Mexico from 1982 to 1984 at the height of Guatemala's 36-year civil war.

Menchú served as the Presidential Goodwill Ambassador for the 1996 Peace Accords in Guatemala. That same year she received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award in Boston.

After the Guatemalan Civil War ended, Menchú campaigned to have Guatemalan political and military establishment members tried in Spanish courts. On 23 December 2006, Spain called for the extradition from Guatemala of seven former members of Guatemala's government, including Efraín Ríos Montt and Óscar Mejía, on charges of genocide and torture. Spain's highest court ruled that cases of genocide committed abroad could be judged in Spain, even if no Spanish citizens were involved. Menchú faced opposition and discrimination. In April 2005, five Guatemalan politicians would be convicted for hurling racial epithets at Menchú. Court rulings would also uphold the right to wear indigenous dresses and practice Mayan spirituality. She was the first Maya, Indigenous woman to ever run in a Guatemalan election. In the 2007 election, Menchú was defeated in the first round, receiving three percent of the vote.

In 2009, Menchú became involved in the newly founded party Winaq. Although Menchú was not elected, Winaq succeeded in becoming the first Indigenous political party of Guatemala. The tribunal looked at evidence going back to the CIA-backed coup that ousted democratically elected president Jacobo Árbenz in 1954; although its focus was on the massacres, scorched earth policies, forced disappearances, torture, and killings taking place at the time under General Efraín Ríos Montt. Guatemala became the first Latin America country to place a former president on trial for genocide, being charged for the killing and disappearance of 70,000 people and the displacement of hundreds of thousands. In this capacity, she acted as a spokesperson for the first International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples (1995–2004), where she worked to improve international collaboration on issues such as environment, education, health care, and human rights for Indigenous peoples. In 2015, Menchú met with the general director of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, in order to solidify relations between Guatemala and the organization.

Since 2003, Menchú has become involved in the Indigenous pharmaceutical industry as president of "Salud para Todos" ("Health for All") and the company "Farmacias Similares," with the goal of offering low-cost generic medicines. As president of this organization, Menchú has received pushback from large pharmaceutical companies due to her desire to shorten the patent life of certain AIDS and cancer drugs to increase their availability and affordability.

Menchú is a member of PeaceJam, an organization whose mission is to use Nobel Peace Laureates as mentors and models for young people and provide a way for these Laureates to share their knowledge, passions, and experience. She travels around the world speaking to youth through PeaceJam conferences.

Menchú has continued her activism by continuing to raise awareness for issues including political and economic inequality and climate change.

On 21 September 2002, together with Rita Levi-Montalcini, she took part in a meeting at , Rome, Italy, in the headquarters of the Masonic organization Grand Orient of Italy, to discuss science and peace in the service of mankind.

Legacy

Awards and honors

thumbnail|The Nobel Peace Prize Medal awarded to Menchú is safeguarded in the [[Templo Mayor#Museum|Museo del Templo Mayor in Mexico City.]]

  • 1992 Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy and social justice work for the indigenous peoples of Latin America
  • 1992 UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador position for her advocacy for the indigenous peoples of Guatemala
  • Menchú was the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize at the time, and the first indigenous people recipient.
  • 1996 Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award for her authorship and advocacy for the indigenous peoples of Guatemala
  • 1998 Prince of Asturias Prize for improving the condition of women and the communities they serve. (Jointly with 6 other women.)
  • 1999 asteroid 9481 Menchú was named in her honor ()
  • 2018 Spendlove Prize for her advocacy for minority groups
  • In 2022, the University of Bordeaux Montaigne, located in Pessac, gave her name to its newly built library in her honor.

Publications

  • I, Rigoberta Menchú (1983)'
  • This book, also titled My Name is Rigoberta Menchú and that's how my Conscience was Born, was dictated by Menchú and transcribed by Elizabeth Burgos
  • Crossing Borders (1998)
  • Enkelin der Maya [Daughter of the Maya] (1999)
  • The Girl from Chimel (2005) with Dante Liano, illustrated by Domi '
  • The Honey Jar (2006) with Dante Liano, illustrated by Domi
  • The Secret Legacy (2008) with Dante Liano, illustrated by Domi
  • K'aslemalil-Vivir. El caminar de Rigoberta Menchú Tum en el Tiempo (2012)

Testimony controversy

More than a decade after the publication of I, Rigoberta Menchú, anthropologist David Stoll investigated Menchú's story and claimed that Menchú changed some elements about her life, family, and village to meet the publicity needs of the guerrilla movement. Stoll acknowledged the violence against the Maya civilians in his book, Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of all Poor Guatemalans, but believed the guerillas were responsible for the army's atrocities. The controversy caused by Stoll's book received widespread coverage in the US press of the time; thus the New York Times highlighted a few claims in her book contradicted by other sources:

Many authors have defended Menchú, and attributed the controversy to different interpretations of the testimonio genre. Menchú herself states, "I'd like to stress that it's not only my life, it's also the testimony of my people."

See also

  • List of civil rights leaders
  • List of peace activists
  • List of female Nobel laureates
  • List of feminists

References

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Bibliography

  • Ament, Gail. "Recent Maya Incursions into Guatemalan Literary Historiography". Literary Cultures of Latin America: A Comparative History. Eds. Mario J. Valdés & Djelal Kadir. 3 Vols. Vol 1: Configurations of Literary Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004: I: 216–215.
  • Arias, Arturo. "After the Rigoberta Menchú Controversy: Lessons Learned About the Nature of Subalternity and the Specifics of the Indigenous Subject" MLN 117.2 (2002): 481–505.
  • Beverley, John. "The Real Thing (Our Rigoberta)" Modern Language Quarterly 57:2 (June 1996): 129–235.
  • Brittin, Alice A. "Close Encounters of the Third World Kind: Rigoberta Menchu and Elisabeth Burgos's Me llamo Rigoberta Menchu". Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 22, No. 4, Redefining Democracy: Cuba and Chiapas (Autumn, 1995), pp.&nbsp;100–114.
  • De Valdés, María Elena. "The Discourse of the Other: Testimonio and the Fiction of the Maya." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (Liverpool), LXXIII (1996): 79–90.
  • Feal, Rosemary Geisdorfer. "Women Writers into the Mainstream: Contemporary Latin American Narrative". Philosophy and Literature in Latin America. Eds. Jorge J.E. Gracia and Mireya Camurati. New York: State University of New York, 1989. An overview of women in contemporary Latin American letters.
  • Golden, Tim. "Guatemalan Indian Wins the Nobel Peace Prize": New York Times (17 October 1992): p. A1, A5.
  • Golden, Tim. "Guatemalan to Fight on With Nobel as Trumpet": New York Times (19 October 1992): p. A5.
  • Gossen, Gary H. "Rigoberta Menchu and Her Epic Narrative". Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 26, No. 6, If Truth Be Told: A Forum on David Stoll's "Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans" (Nov., 1999), pp.&nbsp;64–69.
  • Gray Díaz, Nancy. "Indian Women Writers of Spanish America". Spanish American Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Source Book. Ed. Diane E. Marting. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988
  • Millay, Amy Nauss. Voices from the Fuente Viva: The Effect of Orality in Twentieth-Century Spanish American Narrative. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2005.
  • Logan, Kathleen. "Personal Testimony: Latin American Women Telling Their Lives". Latin American Research Review 32.1 (1997): 199–211. Review Essay.
  • Nelan, Bruce W. "Striking Against Racism". Time 140:61 (26 October 1992): p.&nbsp;61.
  • Stanford, Victoria. "Between Rigoberta Menchu and La Violencia: Deconstructing David Stoll's History of Guatemala" Latin American Perspectives 26.6, If Truth Be Told: A Forum on David Stoll's "Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans" (Nov., 1999), pp.&nbsp;38–46.
  • ---. "From I, Rigoberta to the Commissioning of Truth Maya Women and the Reshaping of Guatemalan History". Cultural Critique 47 (2001) 16–53.
  • Sommer, Doris. "Rigoberta's Secrets" Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 18, No. 3, Voices of the Voiceless in Testimonial Literature, Part I. (Summer, 1991), pp.&nbsp;32–50.
  • Stoll, David "Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans" (Westview Press, 1999)
  • ---. "Slaps and Embraces: A Rhetoric of Particularism". The Latin American Subaltern Studies Reader. Ed. Iliana Rodríguez. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.
  • Wise, R. Todd. "Native American Testimonio: The Shared Vision of Black Elk and Rigoberta Menchú". In Christianity and Literature, Volume 45, Issue No.1 (Autumn 1995).
  • Zimmerman, Marc. "Rigoberta Menchú After the Nobel: From Militant Narrative to Postmodern Politics". The Latin American Subaltern Studies Reader. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.
  • Salon.com: Rigoberta Menchú meets the press
  • "Peace Prize Winner Admits Discrepancies", AP story in New York Times, 12 February 1999 (Subscription only.)
  • "Spain may judge Guatemala abuses", BBC News, 5 October 2005
  • "Anthropologist Challenges Veracity of Multicultural Icon" – The Chronicle of Higher Education. (Subscription only.)
  • Sound recording of Elizabeth Burgos-Debray interviewing Rigoberta Menchu.