I Rigoberta Menchu [Paperback]

 

 

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"I, Rigoberta de Menchú"
Edited by Elisabeth Burgos-Debray

This is an awesome book. I recommend this book for everybody who wants to know the truth about the suffering of the Indians in Guatemala. This book talks about the customs of her community and also talks about all the injustices and discrimination that the white people had against the Indians.

Rigoberta belongs to the Quiché people in Guatemala. The customs of the Quiché people are very different from our customs. The Quiché people are very closed to the nature and they respect and give an enormous value to the animals and to the plants. This book make you realize the importance of the nature that we normally forget when we became more "civilize". This book shows all the suffering that the Quiche people had to life with it and the story of Rigoberta and her community shake you and force you to see that how superficial our society became. We worry for materialistic things, for example, I want expensive furniture or I'm not happy with the old T.V that I bought a year ago. Now I want the new plasma T.V. We worry for ephemeral things and most of the time we are wondering what kind of food are we going to eat instead of what we are going to do now if our children are asking for food and we don't have any food to provide them.

This book make you realize that Indians are being exploited and so many products that you consume are thanks to them. This book shows how the landlords exploited them on the fincas (The fincas are places where the coffee and the cotton are cultivated). This is a very emotional and sad part of the book and breaks you heart to believe that can exist people so mean who take any advantages of these hard workers. The conditions in which they work are unacceptable. They are exploited in every way possible. They work very hard and the pay is miserable.

When the Indians try to rebel the army took actions and what they did was to torture the people who try to change all this injustices. They try to suppress them with these awful tortures. We can see how the Indians accepted the catholic religion and how they interpreted the bible. The bible help them to see things more clear and they used it to claim their own rights as human been.

I recommend this book because after you read it all you are going to have a better understanding of the Indian culture and also you are going to be thankful for all the tiny things you have in life. People who don't appreciate life should read this book. People who waste food should read this book. People who don't appreciate nature should read this book. This book is going to make you be thankful and to be less superficial.

There are times in your live when you realize that all the complications and "suffering" that you have to endure is something miniscule. That your whining about how the grass isn't growing pretty in the lawn or about how your life [is hard] because you are only getting paid $10, $12 dollars an hour and that is not enough to pay the $40,000 dollar car and the house and all those thing you need for your "simple" life are a testament of how God is not fair to you. But then, when you read something like I, Rigoberta de Menchu you come to realize that maybe, just maybe all the tragedy in your life is not so tragic. That is the beauty of this book. The realization that there are so many things out there in the world that we not even acknowledge as something real and with substance is what this book reminds you of. We live in a cynical, cynical world that focuses on money, [adult relations], and entertainment and most of the times the problems concerning other parts of the world are irrelevant until one of our own is involve. This is reality, but there is the other realities of people who really suffer and have to face adversity everyday and we, the privilege, don't even care.
(...) I, Rigoberta de Menchu, is an eye opener. It is cruel, sad, gross, devastating, and uplifting book all at the same time. It has value, morals and character something that our community, our entire nation sometimes lacks and that reminds you how little we know about the problems that the human race faces in general. Nevertheless, the narration is extremely moving and compassionate and brought to ink very vividly. I have to admit that there are segments of the book, which are really hard to digest and absorb. There are images that stick to your mind and your spirit like sun to the ground, they might leave you for a while but you know that once inserted they will always comeback to hunt you and will never leave you, not really.
(...)The book reveals the treatment that Mayas, and Indians in general have had to endure for so many years. Seclusion, rejection, discrimination, assassination, and many, many worse things that make your heart shatter. While reading this book you can help but think how humans are capable of doing so many atrocities to fellow members of their species without discriminating if they are men, women or children. It is something barbaric that in a nation like the U.S. seems to be like a Mel Gibson film, something unreal that during our lifetime should not be happening but, that unfortunately it is and with more frequency that it should ever be. Rigoberta accomplishes to tell the reader about the importance of community and respect towards any person. She establishes importance of unity that should be contemplated as something precious among human beings because that is the only way were are going to survive in this world that becomes smaller every day.

Personally, it was hard to read this book because I have fellow countrymen that are Mayan and it is really sad to acknowledge the problems they face are also happening in Mexico. Also, because I spend years studding about how magnificent and powerful their civilization used to be and how modernization is finishing with all the values and practices that made their culture one of a kind in the history of the world. I'll be the first to tell you that modernization is essential for the development of the world, without it we could not survive in this fast growing world, but it is truly a shame that we have to take advantage of people that all they desire is to maintain an style of life that doesn't require technology to be self-sufficient. This is what I am against of, taking advantage of people because we can.

This world needs more compassion and understanding. Until the day we realize that we are doomed to keep making mistake like creating conflicts with people we believe to be "uncivilized" when perhaps they are the rational side of the story. In my point of view, Rigoberta's message is that of -life and freedom for all- I think that is all she wants for her fellow Mayan brothers and sisters to be allowed to live a simple life where their custom will be protected and where their freedom will be left alone with nature. It seems to me that all they ask for is to be allowed to unite with nature in the future like they did in the past. Now, is that too much to ask?

Take a whole community of people, stick them in the middle of nowhere and take away almost everything that they've been using to survive for the past hundred years. Take away their land and their way of life. Separate them and divide them against each other. Make them suffer to keep themselves and their family from dying. Will they make it? Some will, and the rest do not have a million dollar prize waiting for them when they've died trying to survive. This is not a reality show; this is simply reality, Rigoberta Menchú's reality.
If there was ever a story that needed to be told, this is it. I, Rigoberta Menchú will declare most of our modern problems, whether it is with our family or friends, bosses or co-workers or anyone and anything else that is complicating our lives, null and void. This novel gives new meaning to the word survival.
This book should affect everyone who reads it because it is not a recollection of history that happened a long time ago. This book was written in the nineteen eighties, not the eighteen eighties. The atrocities that took place all happened in most of our generation. It is real, and though it isn't happening in our home. It's close enough.

Rigoberta Menchú told her story when she was twenty-three years old. She starts off by explaining the traditions of her people, the Mayan Indians. She explains all their rituals, and the significance of each and every one of them. The background given was important to understanding why holding on to their culture was such an important part of life for them. There was not one ritual that I can remember that did not have an explanation. The bottom line was that her people based their lives on those who were before them. They strived to live the way their ancestors did, and when the Spaniards took over Guatemala, everything changed, and holding on to their way of life became a struggle. Even when Spain was done with Guatemala, their presence had a lasting effect on the Indian people. Their land was taken away, and they were forced to work for ghastly wages under inhumane conditions. They could no longer live as a community because all of a sudden they had to pay for things that the community used to provide, but could no longer afford to. Some of the Indian people turned their backs on their community to join the remaining Spaniards and others who were in control. These conditions caused a lot of death and trauma to the Indian communities and this story tells the world about all the atrocities that were committed, and how Rigoberta and her family helped her community, and eventually others, fight for their right to live.
It is inspirational to read about all the risks that were taken, with no regard to their own lives, in order to change the conditions they were living in. Rigoberta Menchú and her family saved peoples lives. They educated Indians on how to defend themselves, and keep from getting killed. They say that when the going gets tough, the tough get going, Rigoberta Menchú got entire communities going in the right direction to make changes that would better their lives.
There is no way that I could relate to her situation. No one I know could have been strong enough to live under the conditions that they did. They knew they were destined to work hard and get nothing in return from the day they were born. They did not sit and complain and ask the government for help, because it wasn't there. They sucked it up and worked their hardest every single day they were alive. Admirable is not strong enough a word to describe their survival.
I cannot end this review without mentioning that there has been some controversy about this novel and I will not say what it is. If you really want to know, you can find out for yourself. And when you do, put yourself in Rigoberta's shoes and see if you are a strong enough person to do what she did. I know that I am not, so I cannot point any fingers, can you?

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5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful*
I, Rigoberta Menchu is a powerful depiction of the life Rigoberta has faced in Guatemala. Part of its strength comes from the way it is written. Read more

Published on April 29 2004

1.0 out of 5 stars This book is Mostly Fabrication
This book, often assigned as reading in schools across the country, has been revealed as mostly fabricated. Read more

Published on Jan 12 2004 by Stephen Hancock

2.0 out of 5 stars Good (if unwitting) expose of Indian culture
I was made to read this book as part of a course on Latin American history. While mostly drivel, it is valuable in its insights into the Indian mindset and the root causes of... Read more

Published on Dec 6 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars An Essential Read
(This is both a review and a response to Michael J. Mazza's book review located above).

I think the above Mazza review is pretty smart and well articulated and would like to... Read more

Published on Nov 11 2003 by Ralph-Michael

4.0 out of 5 stars I, Rigoberta Menchu-Amy Tehan
This book is rich with cultural insights and details, and Rigoberta tells us her story with passion and an inner strength that can only come from years of persecution. Read more

Published on Sep 11 2003 by Amy Tehan

4.0 out of 5 stars possibly embellished but nevertheless inspiring
Despite the recent questioning of Rigoberta's honesty, I strongly encourage others to read this book, because it will open your eyes to the harsh side of life. Read more

Published on Aug 14 2003

2.0 out of 5 stars Nice work of fiction...
I believe this book has some value. There are some nice insights into the mind and culture of the quiche maya people. Read more

Published on April 22 2003 by Rolltide

2.0 out of 5 stars Slow-moving, tedious (& fallacious) tale of Guat. struggle
I am sure that anyone familiar with Rigoberta Menchu is also familiar with David Stoll and his book "I, Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans" The well-known... Read more

Published on Nov 15 2002 by tjt83

1.0 out of 5 stars Perpetuating the destructive myth of the Noble Savage
As literature, this work is at best tedious and laborious. As a piece of political propoganda it is specious. As a documentary it is false. Read more

Published on Dec 10 2001 by Bill Gilbert

4.0 out of 5 stars Rigoberta Menchú
When I first finished the book, I, Rigoberta Menchú: an Indian Woman in Guatemala, I was fairly depressed by its content. Read more

Published on Dec 9 2001 by eddie13

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