{"id":32,"date":"2023-03-20T20:12:38","date_gmt":"2023-03-21T03:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312discussion\/?p=32"},"modified":"2023-03-20T20:12:38","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T03:12:38","slug":"week-ten-i-rigoberta-menchu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312discussion\/2023\/03\/20\/week-ten-i-rigoberta-menchu\/","title":{"rendered":"Week Ten- I, Rigoberta Menchu"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week we read \u201cI, Rigoberta Menchu\u201d by Rigoberta Menchu. I found this story to be very impactful and will definitely be one I remember for a long time. I think this book was a very important read for me to deepen my knowledge of the experience of Indigenous peoples (especially the Indigenous groups in Guatemala, which I had never learned about before reading this book) because I recognize that most of what I have learned about Indigenous rights and history have been through western literature and textbooks, where my teachers would provide a brief overview of the topic. However, reading the individual account of Rigoberta Menchu, someone who has first-hand experienced the discrimination and horrors of what many Indigenous peoples in Guatemala have to endure was really impactful for me as she did not seem to shy away from the most horrific details. While this story was really eye-opening for me to learn about the terrible treatment of Rigoberta Menchu and her group by the Guatemalan government, there were also a lot of interesting details for me as she shared about certain customs and traditions of the Quiche people, such as the Nahual protective spirit that each person has with them throughout life or their birth ceremonies indicating that the birth of a new child belongs not only to the parents but the community. With my interest and little background in developmental psychology, this was really interesting to me as I have only viewed such early life events through a Western lens and I loved to learn more about the traditions within different cultures and groups. With this all being said, it was heartbreaking to me to learn how many of the Quiche children are lost to malnutrition, as Rigoberta said after her younger brother\u2019s death, \u201cI was both angry with life and afraid of it, because I told myself: \u2018This is the life I will lead too; having many children, and having them die.\u2019 It\u2019s not easy for a mother to watch her child die, and have nothing to cure him with or help his life\u201d (page 41).<\/span><\/p>\n

As mentioned earlier, the individual account of Indigenous history or experiences I have found is generally not accounted for when it is taught in school settings, especially in the later years of high school. However, this has been my experience and personally would have found it beneficial to read more books or resources like \u201cI, Rigoberta Menchu\u201d to grow my perspective and learn about the important and somewhat hidden topics of history. For my discussion question this week, I would love to hear if others have had a similar experience to me when it comes to learning about Indigenous rights and history. What do you think the importance is of having read \u2018testimonios\u2019 or first-hand accounts of indigenous peoples\u2019 experiences? Do you think more books like this one should be implemented into the school curriculum? Why or why not? I would love to hear some of your thoughts on this topic!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week we read \u201cI, Rigoberta Menchu\u201d by Rigoberta Menchu. I found this story to be very impactful and will definitely be one I remember for a long time. I think this book was a very important read for me to deepen my knowledge of the experience of Indigenous peoples (especially the Indigenous groups in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94962,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[30,23,7],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-menchu","tag-education","tag-history","tag-perspective"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312discussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312discussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312discussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312discussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94962"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312discussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312discussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312discussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/33"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312discussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312discussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312discussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}