Rigoberta Menchu’s biography, I, Rigoberta Menchu was written by the wife of Marxist Regis Debray, Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. Such a perspective suits her well to tell this classic tale of Marxian struggle. Rigoberta Menchu was born to poor Mayan farmers living on the fringes of a country that was taken from them by Spanish conquistadors. Ever since the conquistadors colonized Latin America in the pursuit of silver, sugar, coffee and other resources, such farmers have struggled against the debilitating and demoralizing impact of colonialism.
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.
Because of their dire economic straits and the lack of sustainable land to farm, Rigoberta must watch her brother die of starvation. In another episode, her father involves himself in a courageous battle against the Ladinos, but it is in vain and results in the death and torture of his son, wife, and him. After organizing a resistance movement known as the Committee for Campesino Unity, the members join forces with the Guerilla Army of the Poor (ERG). In the ensuing
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