Photo courtesy of Thinker78 via WikiMedia Commons.
Dr. Rigoberta Menchú Tum critiqued the influence of the United States on Guatemala’s history, recounting personal losses she suffered when the U.S. provided weapons to Guatemalan security forces.
By Kiera Mclaughlin ’26
Staff Writer
Content warning: This article discusses anti-Indigenous violence, mass death and police brutality.
The U.S. was involved in Latin American politics throughout the 20th century, which has had a profound impact on Indigenous citizens in Central America. This influence was discussed in “U.S. Policy in the Global South,” a keynote speech that took place on Sept. 19, 2022, as part of the “Confronting Empire: 2022-2023 Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series” presented by the University of Massachusetts Amherst. During the event, American broadcast journalist Amy Goodman interviewed Dr. Rigoberta Menchú Tum, an Indigenous Guatemalan activist, and Vincent Bevins, a journalist who covers global violence fueled by the U.S. against communist movements. The keynote highlighted the speaker’s understanding of the U.S.’s influence throughout the globe, with a focus on imperialism in Guatemala.
U.S. intervention in Guatemalan politics has brought about the deaths of thousands of Indigenous people. Laura E. Gómez discussed this history in her book, “Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism,” in which she explains how the United Fruit Company, an American company that used Guatemalan land and laborers wrongfully sought U.S. government intervention and the removal of the democratically-elected president by lying about his ties to communism. In reality, United Fruit Company wanted to remove the president at the time, Jacobo Árbenz and the “new Agrarian Reform Law — designed to break United Fruit’s strangehold on the nation’s best land,” one of the many “pro-labor” reforms that he introduced. Since UFC owned over 42 percent of the land in Guatemala, President Árbenz fought to buy back that land and require the company to pay taxes. By overthrowing Árbenz, the U.S. triggered the Guatemalan Civil War, which lasted for 35 years.
During her interview in the “U.S. Policy in the Global South” keynote, Menchú spoke powerfully in Spanish about the direct effect the Guatemalan Civil War and the American government had on her people and family. “I am a leader, I am a woman, but when I look to the past, I don’t seek revenge. I love life, I want to lead a life that is free and that is spiritually full,” she announced according to a translation provided by the Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series.
Tum identifies as a Mayan K’iche’ woman, a part of the Mayan Indigenous people, UMass Amherst reported. Her father and other activists were targeted by the Guatemalan police in the 1980s for protesting the military occupation in their region, according to INTLAWGRRLS. During this time, the U.S. provided weapons and training for a Guatemalan security forces that later attacked and killed thousands of civilians in an event known as the Guatemalan Genocide, The Washington Post Foreign Service reported. During the lecture, Menchú talked about her father being publicly burned alive at the Spanish Embassy and the kidnapping of her mother, who was never found. The Holocaust Museum of Houston reported that “the army destroyed 626 villages, killed or ‘disappeared’ more than 200,000 people and displaced an additional 1.5 million.”
These deaths and traumas, Tum explained, are a direct consequence of the United States’ influence in Guatemala. While Tum explained her personal experiences with American policy’s lasting effects in Guatemala, Bevins provided a historical comparison to the Guatemalan Genocide by speaking about Indonesia and other countries that America has infiltrated, intent on stopping communism.
When asked how to help Indigenous people, Bevins said, “It’s very important to be in touch with and support whatever causes around the world that you also believe in and I think an easy way to answer that question is to listen to what the actual Indigenous groups say they need, whatever that may be.” Tum was also asked about what she’d like to see in reparations for survivors of violence. She answered, “Reconciliation would be to have no more interventions — at a local level [and] at a regional level. [It would be to keep] the same crimes from happening and to have recognition of the past and to have young people recognize and get to know what happened. Not to hide the past.”
Tum has turned her rage into empowerment, fueling her fight for equality for Latin American immigrants while talking about her past and standing up for what she believes in. She said, “Within my story there’s a lot to tell but I think the most important thing, probably, is that I didn’t shut up. I didn’t go silent. I broke the silence.” The sentiment isone she hopes students listen to and follow.
Tum is a seasoned speaker, and sharing her story solely in Spanish added to the passion and pride she has for Indigenous people and immigrants. “We lived it in our own skin but we continue, we are still here,” she said. Tum is confident in the next generation of students and the work she and her fellow activists have accomplished. She fully believes that “we have to leave history to the new generations to come. We’ve settled some principles of struggle against violence. We’ve set some principles, some footprints for human dignity.”