[nativestudies-l] Nobel Laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum @ Quinnipiac

[jkauanui at wesleyan.edu]

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Human rights activist and 1992 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Rigoberta
Menchú Tum will present "The Life and Times of Rigoberta Menchú Tum"
Monday, Oct. 27, at 7 p.m. in the Recreation Center.

Menchú, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization, has dedicated her life to organizing
resistance to oppression in Guatemala and advocating for the rights of
Indian peasants. Menchú was born to a poor Indian peasant family and
raised in the Quiche branch of the Mayan culture in Guatemala. Reform work
by her and her family aroused opposition leading to the arrest, torture
and death of her parents and brother.

Menchú was prominent in a 1980 strike the Committee of the Peasant Union
organized for better conditions for farm workers on the Pacific Coast. She
later joined the radical 31st of January Popular Front to educate the
Indian peasant population in resistance to massive military oppression.

Joining other Nobel Peace laureates, Menchú co-founded The Nobel Women's
Initiative in 2006 to support efforts for women's rights. She formed the
indigenous political party Encuentro por Guatemala in 2007 and ran for
president of Guatemala that year.

Menchú offered firsthand accounts about the war between the Guatemalan
military and the Mayan population in the 1983 documentary "When the
Mountains Tremble." She has written two books about her life: "Crossing
Borders" in 1998 and "I, Rigoberta Menchu" in 1984, both published by
Verso Books.

Menchú's lecture kicks off the daylong conference "The Declaration of
Human Rights 60 Years Later: A Look at Indigenous and Gender Issues" Oct.
28 at Quinnipiac. For more information, contact Quinnipiac public
relations at 203-582-8652.

The free lecture, which is sponsored by Quinnipiac's Albert Schweitzer
Institute, is open to the public.