Rigoberta Menchú Tum (1959-present) dedicated her life to speaking out for Indigenous Guatemalans, fighting tirelessly against the human rights abuses that occurred during and after the Guatemalan Civil War.
Rigoberta Menchú Tum (1959-present) dedicated her life to speaking out for Indigenous Guatemalans, fighting tirelessly against the human rights abuses that occurred during and after the Guatemalan Civil War.
Women’s contributions to peacekeeping efforts are often overlooked, but no more. This month on Womanica we're highlighting women who have spearheaded peacekeeping initiatives all over the world — from India to South Africa to the United States. We cover women like Doria Shafik who led Egypt’s female liberation movement, as well as Coretta Scott King who was a fierce advocate for equality for Black Americans and a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. Tune in to hear the stories of women who were integral to creating peace in their communities.
History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.
Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.
Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Liz Smith, Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Lindsey Kratochwill, Adesuwa Agbonile, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Ale Tejeda, Sara Schleede, Abbey Delk, and Alex Jhamb Burns. Special thanks to Shira Atkins.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Meltem Burak. I’m the host and producer of the podcast Sesta. We aim to harness the power of arts and culture to foster conversation and build peace in Cyprus. I’ll be your guest host for this month of Womanica.
This month, we’re highlighting Peacebuilders. In times of conflict, these women stepped in, bringing their creativity and insight to help facilitate peace across the globe.
Today’s Womanican has dedicated her life to speaking out for Indigenous Guatemalans. She fought tirelessly against the human rights abuses that occurred during and after the Guatemalan Civil War, and has won a Nobel Peace Prize for her activism.
Let’s talk about Rigoberta Menchú Tum.
Rigoberta was born on January 9, 1959 in Guatemala. Her family, part of the Indigenous Quiché Mayan community, was very poor. Rigoberta’s father owned a small piece of land in the highlands, but her family spent most of their time on the Pacific coast. There, they worked on coffee and cotton plantations to earn enough for food and medicine. The work was brutal. Two of Rigoberta’s brothers died on the plantation.
Guatemala’s history is marked by battles over democracy. And the U.S. was instrumental in casting the first stones. In the 1950s, the U.S. was facing down the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The U.S. government saw communism as a big threat, and they did not want their neighbors in Latin America to side with the USSR. And so, when Guatemala’s president, Jacobo Arbenz, legalized the communist party and attempted to nationalize the country’s fruit plantations… the U.S. intervened. In 1954, the CIA backed a military coup to overthrow Arbenz – a leader who had been democratically elected by the people of Guatemala. This launched the country into a civil war that lasted 36 years. It’s estimated that 250,000 Guatemalans were killed. Many were Indigenous Mayans.
Rigoberta grew up during this civil war and she witnessed the displacement, torture, and murder of her people. Rigoberta’s father was involved in the Catholic Church and a member of the Committee for Peasant Unity, or CUC, an Indigenous labor organization. His social activism with these organizations inspired Rigoberta from a young age. In 1979, she herself joined the CUC.
That same year, one of Rigoberta’s brothers was kidnapped. He was just 16 years old. Rigoberta, her mother, and her community banded together to find him but could not. The military announced it would hold a guerrilla council, where they would publicly punish guerrillas in their custody. Rigoberta said she walked for an entire day and night to see the proceeding. When she got there, twenty people were unloaded off the army truck. Her brother was one of them.
The prisoners had been tortured for fifteen days. Rigoberta’s brother had been mutilated. Her mother had to keep herself from crying out. If the military knew she was related to an alleged guerrilla, she could have been killed. An army captain gave a three-hour speech threatening the onlookers and describing the torture inflicted on the prisoners. Afterward, the prisoners, including Rigoberta’s brother, were covered with gasoline and set on fire.
Her father, Vicente, was accused of sowing unrest among the population and arrested many times over the years. In 1980, Vicente, along with a group of activists, occupied the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala City to protest the government. A police chief ordered the building to be firebombed. Vicente was among the nearly 40 people who died inside. Soon after that, Rigoberta’s mother was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by the military government.
Rigoberta continued her work with the CUC, the Indigenous labor rights organization. She fought for better conditions for farm workers on the coast. And in addition to speaking Quiché, she taught herself Spanish and other Mayan languages. That way, she could teach different communities across Guatemala about resisting military oppression.
Rigoberta’s activism made her a target for retaliation from the government. She went into hiding in Guatemala and then fled to Mexico. But she continued to organize for Indigenous rights from afar. Tens of thousands of Guatemalans fled to Mexico in the early 1980s. Most of them were Indigenous Mayans.
In 1983, when Rigoberta was in her early 20s, she told her life story to an anthropologist. Over the course of eight days, they recorded hours and hours of tape. These recordings eventually became the book, I, Rigoberta Menchú, An Indian Woman in Guatemala.
The book captivated readers around the world. It was a detailed, painful telling of her life experiences in war-torn Guatemala. And it garnered international support for the Guatemalan resistance movement.
In 1992, Rigoberta received the Nobel Peace Prize. At that time, she was the youngest person to have ever received the award, and the first Indigenous person to do so.
She used her prize money to create The Rigoberta Menchú Tum Foundation. The foundation is dedicated to education, health care, and community development for Indigenous Guatemalans. After the end of the civil war in 1996, the foundation helped repatriate refugees. Today, the foundation focuses on civic education and voting rights.
In 1998, an American academic published a book discrediting some of the details in Rigoberta’s memoir. His research was featured on the front page of the New York Times, launching Rigoberta into the controversy, and forcing her to respond to accusations. She has said she will defend her book “to the death.”
Since then, other scholars have also defended her work. Even a member of the Nobel committee noted that memoirs often contain embellishments. And in the end, when someone is arguing over whether a man was burned alive, or murdered and then burned, the exact details seem less important.
The stories Rigoberta told for the world to hear do represent the kinds of very real violence and pain many poor Indigenous Guatemalans face. And her activism today has kept these stories and experiences in the spotlight.
All month, we’re talking about peacebuilders. For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram @womanicapodcast.
Special thanks to co-creators Jenny and Liz Kaplan for having me on as a guest host.
Talk to you tomorrow!