I, Rigoberta Menchu (tres)

1.      Describe how the book is evolving. What are you learning? How is it shaping your interpretation of who Guatemala is, what it looks like, how it smells, ect.

This book is evolving in a way that reveals more and more about Rigoberta’s culture and how it changes as she gets older. It talks more about her working life and how it was the same for many families that lived in her town. Rigoberta explains more about how her life was really split into two differ times, when she was at the coast working and when she was in the mountains working. She explained how the ladinos thought that her people were dirty because they did not shower often, but she tells how there wasn’t much need or opportunity to do so. I cannot imagine being close to many people who have not showered for days after working hard in the field. She also talks about her surrounding and how her field of maize is far from the house and how her area is far from the main town. She lives in a very secluded area.     

2.      Menchu uses the following quotation to start chapter 7, “… those who sow maize for profit leave the earth empty of bones of the forefathers that give the maize, and then the earth demands bones, and the softest ones, those of children, pile up on top of her and beneath her black crust, to feed her.” After reading this chapter, what is your interpretation to this quotation?

This chapter was very gloomy in two ways. First is because this happens to many women in Guatemala and two because her little brother died for a very preventable cause. This quote is a reference to how Rigoberta’s baby brother died from malnutrition. Her mother had to work in the fields for multiple hours and the baby would get little to eat because not only was the mother working to make money for the family, but there was also little food to make the child. Leaving the earth empty of the bones of the forefathers is I believe a reference to the fact that not as many men are dying then there are babies. Workings on these fields kill babies because there is simply no money for food.  

3.      Based on your reading of chapter 8, what are your thoughts of culture? How does Rigoberta’s culture align to your own? How is it different?

Life for Rigoberta is 100% different from mine. She wakes up every morning at around 4 to 5 in the morning to start her chores and work for the day. I wake up at 7:30 a.m. to go to school. She has a variety of chores and work to do while I have maybe one or two minor chores. At ten she becomes an adult and has greater responsibility. I will be considered an adult at 18 and I still won’t have as many responsibilities as she has.