I, Rigoberta Menchu (Diez)

1.)   Chapter 31 speaks in detail about power of being a woman. What was the most inspiring to you?

The most inspiring thing when I read Chapter 31 was how women are so dedicated to their people. Chapter 31 talks about how willing and involved women are to helping the fight for their people. Rigoberta Menchu mentions about once being engaged to a man she really loved. She ended up choosing her people over her companero because she felt that her duty belonged to her people. It was very hard for her to choose but in the end it showed how much her people were to her. Menchu also talks about how other women who have many children do (up to six) are able to care for all her children and do the same hard work as Menchu does. To me I find that very inspiring of how women are so dedicated for the people.

2.) What was the January 31st Popular Front?

After the burning of the Spanish embassy, sectors whose leaders had died united and made the January 31st Popular Front. It got its name from the day the Spnaish Embassy had burned down during a fight with the police.
3.) Rigoberta has to keep everything secretive as she moves from place to place when she is hiding, Why is it so important that she do this?

It is important that Rigoberta Menchu keeps her whereabouts secretive because if she were to be found, it would mean the end of her. She is a wanted woman by the Guatemalan government so it is very important that she moves from place to place so that no one will find out where she is.



4.) Menchu begins ending her book with the following Popul Vuh quotation: " We are avengers of death. Our race will never be extinguished while there is light in the morning star." Use this as a prompt to capitulate what you got from this book. Explain how Menchu's life honors this quotation. Be sure to provide at least 5 different examples.

This quote explains what this whole book is about. The natives of Guatemala are the avengers who are fighting for what is just. For years they've been fighting for what is rightfully theirs and what had been taken away from them. All their lives the indigenous people have been taught to act and do what is best for their people and that is what they did when the time came for them to fight back against their governments who had stole so much from them. Rigoberta Menchu, and along with many others, has lived though a hard life that has given them very little in return. When a child is brought into this life, they begin to experience the hardships at a very early stage in life. They realize the older you become, the harder things get over time. Eventhough survival for the natives is a great struggle, the important thing to them is to do what is best for the people.
       Going through and watching many loved ones die, Rigoberta has managed to go with integrity. Watching her brother die from malnutrition and  her parents go through so much pain; experiencing the loss of a woman pushedher to fight even harder to protect ehr people after picking up the mutilated body of once was her firend; protecting her first village from the government soldiers; and the deaths of her parents are some examples that show how she continued to fight for her people. After her exile from Guatemala, Rigoberta Menchu continued to fight for her people in a different angle that has made a big impact to her people. So when the last part of the quotaion states, "...Our race will never be extinguished while there is light in the morning star," it means no matter demons you face, you will always overcome it as long as you have the determination to make a difference. For the native Guatemalans, culture, pride, and dignity will never be destroyed as long as they are willing to fight to keep it.