I, Rigoberta Menchu

Descendants of the conquistadors, the Ladinos, try to drive the Menchus and other indigenous peasants off their land. Rigoberta is kept illiterate by her father, Vincente. She is instead forced to labor in the fields because he is afraid an education will alienate her from him. As she writes at the opening of the book, “When I was older, my father regretted my not going to school, as I was a girl able to learn many things. But he always said: ‘Unfortunately, if I put you in school, they’ll make you forget your class; they’ll turn you into a Ladino. I don’t want that for you and that’s why I don’t send you” (Menchu 1). In this way we see that the impact of colonialism stems not just from enforced poverty and land dispossession, but also from the loss of cultural and spiritual identity as the more powerful ruling class imposes assimilation on indigenous peoples.

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Approximate Word count = 976
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page)

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