Maya revitalization in the North American classroom

Abstract

ABSTRACT Studying Gaspar Pedro González’ A Mayan Life offers North American students an introduction to the material and spiritual consequences of colonialism as well as strategies for challenging its domination. This essay explains important historical contexts that clarify the novel’s strategy for Maya revitalization. It also analyzes the ways the novel negotiations the two strategies for revitalization that shaped the Maya response to Guatemala’s genocidal civil war. The popular rights or popular left groups, including the guerrillas, emphasized economic exploitation and land rights while the culturalists focused on strengthening Maya identity, language and religion. These strategies, sometimes intersecting but often in conflict, then played out in the Maya Revitalization Movement. This essay also presents methods for helping students gain ethnographic insights into Maya cultural practices in traumatic times. Through this understanding they can better grasp of the problematic of social change. A Mayan Life presents students a multifaceted testimony of oppression and resistance as well as a manifesto and model for change. It is relevant to indigenous people throughout the hemisphere as well as their allies.