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Me... always behind my father.
Rigoberta Menchú
At some level I was surprised to see in Jennifer Harbury's Searching for Everardo that her husband's first contact among the guerrillas was Rodrigo Asturias, the son of the Nobel Prize winner, Miguel Angel Asturias (1887-1974). Everardo learned to read from Rodrigo. Harbury's admiration for the novels of Miguel Asturias would seem to be qualified by her enthusiasm for his son: "Rodrigo was not one to sit at home and write." Her deep ambivalence about writing (and intellectualism in general) is tied up with her background. She is the daughter of a Yale professor. She went to prep school. Well...
Her skepticism is shared by some of the most influential literary/critical theorists in the United States. It is no accident that the group regard themselves as Marxists. I've made mention of this line of thought before and haven't done justice to it. Again, the argument holds that literature, writing, language, are the instruments of the powerful who use these tools to maintain their positions in the social, political and economic hierarchy. In making this case the subjugation of native peoples is used as a primary example of the process.
I, Rigoberta Menchú (1982) has become the most frequently cited work when illustrating the manner in which language functions as a means of control. The book is probably also the first example given when discussing Latin American testimonio. This form or genre of literature is vaguely defined by its inartistic quality of witness. Often it appears in print through the aid of a literate confederate. In Latin America the final product will be written in a European language, usually Spanish.
Menchú's testimony was given to Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. At the time Menchú was twenty-three and had been speaking Spanish for three years. The original publication was in Spanish, which was then followed by a translation into English. Not a little of the content is concerned with the orality of her native culture. Knowledge about the traditions of her people is passed down in constant repetitions and reminders spoken between family members and the community. Sophisticated rituals built around the life of the society and the individual are punctuated by verbal prescriptions that transmit a cultural education. There is a gradual process of informing a child with explicit instructions at various stages of growth, precisely when the child is believed to be ready to comprehend the meaning of the information.
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And not a little of the content of this autobiography is also concerned with the ways in which writing and the Spanish language is used against the native people. Her first experience of this sort comes at the hands of the Indians who have become ladinized, which means, among other things, they have learned to speak Spanish. As overseers on the cotton and coffee plantations they have gained their advantages as intermediaries for the owners. Her family, her culture, rightly see these people as agents of the rich. Consequently they distrust formal schooling and discourage the learning of Spanish.
Closely related to the sharp divisions of language and literacy in Guatemala is Menchú's experience in the city. There she confronts the whole integrated system of hierarchy, capitalism, wage labor, etc. The transition is a brutal one. The city is not so much a place as a material representation of the foreign culture. Guatemala City--the capital of the government--is a disorienting world of machines. In the company of her father she tries to make sense of automobiles: "I thought they were animals just going along." But there's a deeper recognition: "The city was for me a monster, something alien, different. 'Those homes, those people,' I thought, 'this is the world of the ladinos.'" The connection among the ladinos, the government, and the city is crystallized when she follows her father to an office of the agriculture department. He tells her that if an appointment is not kept you are imprisoned. The warning is not lost on her even though she doesn't yet know what a prison is. In the office one of the employees is using a typewriter that she will dream about. It is a mystery to her how the paper comes out with things written on it. It is the paper, or the machine, rather than the employee, that seems to be doing the writing. But the importance of this meeting is underscored by the fact that her father takes off his hat and bows.
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Crowded Thoughts
I know that some of these issues I'm skirting are familiar to both of us. I've had many reasons to think back to my initial disbelief listening to Louie Gingras repeat the remarkable story of Pascal's escape from prison. Years later I heard a Cambodian refugee describe to me a story with many similarities. In that instance a bewitched mop couldn't be controlled by the colonial French. Nor have I forgotten your comment, made on another occasion, that you had been present when Louie retold this story of Pascal. And in each instance the story did not vary.
Susan could actually remember when a town crier would stand on a knoll in Lame Deer and shout out the news to the tribe.
I heard Jimmy King marvel at the special typewriter that the man who adopted him, a Mennonite missionary, used to translate the Bible into Cheyenne. Jimmy always referred to him as 'Mr. Petter,' never 'father.'
There is more I can say about this book and the thoughts it has stirred in me, but a few scraps will have to suffice. Although the Marxists have put the stress on testimonio as a political document that records the struggles of native people, the form has been used by people throughout the continent to unmask the torture and killing under dictatorships. The intent would seem to be more decisive than an unlettered author when trying to define the genre. But there's a long history of similar documents in the Native American "literature" of the United States which both of us have read.
For me one of the most powerful sections was Menchú's brief description of her work as a maid in Guatemala City. I'll grant that her circumstances seem extreme but much the same thing happens here.i The portrait is a vivid microcosm of the larger project of exploitation pursued by the Guatemalan government. Some worlds do indeed begin at home.
But there are other sections in which the sheer butchery is almost unbearable.
Ten years later, 100,000 dead, tens of thousands disappeared, and Menchú won the Nobel Peace Prize. That year was the five hundredth anniversary of Columbus' discovery and it was the first time the award had been given to an Indian.
-September 30, 1997
Endnotes
i Doreen Carvajal, "For Immigrant Maids, Not a Job but Servitude," New York Times, February 25, 1996.
