An extraordinarily compelling testimonio on the lives of Maya campesinos, Rigoberta Menchu’s story hit me en las madres. The testimonio includes interesting details about specific cultural practices, like marriage and birth rites, and beliefs, such as the syncretic Maya Christianity and relationship to naguales. Interestingly, here Rigoberta made clear that her community didn’t ostracize or stigmatize diverse sexual orientations and gender identities queered and oppressed in Western societies. These details as a whole provide outsiders with a bridge into Maya cosmovision and provide assimilated indigenous and mestizo readers an opportunity to reconnect to a bit of what was lost. The portions of the testimonios describing the poverty, organizing, resistance, repression, and torture were deeply moving and harrowing to read. Rigoberta’s testimonio is an invaluable part of the repressed indigenous marxist tradition I am currently reading my way through right now. 5/5
