Rigoberta menchu where is she from

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Embed from Getty Images. Rigoberta Menchu addresses the University of Massachusetts Boston more Through the years, she has done a lot to fight for indigenous rights in Guatemala, and is also passionate about women's and environmental rights. She is currently a partner of One Billion Acts of Peace.

Despite her youth she became an eloquent spokesperson for the rights of the indigenous peoples of the entire Western Hemisphere.

Her mother, whose surname was Tum, was a midwife and traditional healer, and her father, Vicente, was a day laborer, catechist, and community leader. Her difficult childhood is an example of how hundreds of thousands of Indian children grow up in Guatemala.

Every year she followed her parents to the southern coastal plantations, fincas, where they spent months picking cotton and coffee. During the rest of the year the family, back in the highlands, collected wicker in the mountains and grew maize, beans, and potatoes to supplement their diet.

At age 13 she had her first prolonged direct experience with people of Spanish culture and with discrimination , when she worked as a maid for a wealthy family in Guatemala City. Soon thereafter, her father was imprisoned for his efforts to save land from seizure by large landowners. A guerrilla movement that began in triggered a violent government response directed not only at the guerrillas, but also at their supporters, real and alleged, often located in the countryside.

Political violence was renewed in the s, when government repression was applied in such an indiscriminate fashion that U. President Jimmy Carter, after repeated warnings against human rights violations, suspended economic aid in Guatemala's Indians, composing 60 percent of the population, suffered the indignities of forced relocation and military service.