Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala.
Rigoberta Menchu, grew up in a life full of hatred and oppression, but these things were what made her become a stronger person, and led her to be the person that she became. Growing up in Latin America is already hard, but growing up in Latin America as an indigenous person (una "India"), is among the toughest things to go through.
In Latin America, being a native american is among the worst things to be. You are not treated like a human being. Rather, you are treated as if you are less; you are treated like an animal. In the biography, I, Rigoberta Menchu An Indian Woman in Guatemala, edited by Elisabeth Burgos-Debrey, we are put into life in the perspective of Rigoberta. She explains many injustices that she, her family, and her people (all indigenous tribes of Guatemala), must have to face, just to be able to live. She lives a life of oppression, which is something that she fights against.
There were many sources of Ms. Rigoberta Menchu's oppression. The main source of her oppression is, in my eyes, the ignorance and malice of the "Ladinos" (Europeans and Meztisos). Rigoberta and her family each year, when there was no "maize," to sow in their own land, would go down to the "fincas" to make money to be able to feed the family. In these "fincas" they were mistreated and cheated. She and her family would get up very early in the morning and would have to pick cotton, coffee bean, etc. They would pick it until they had no more energy in their bodies and at the end of the day, the people that watched over them to make sure they were doing a good job, would cheat them out of what they worked so hard to get. They had many tricks in which they would deduct money from their pay. They would deduct money if they break a branch, buy medicine from the stores in the "fincas" (because they were owned by the same land owners), or by drinking at the bars in the "fincas.