Ch'orti'-Maya Survival in Eastern Guatemala: Indigeneity in Transition

8. The Ch’orti’ Maya Movement

269 E I G H T The Ch’orti’ Maya Movement One does not have to lose one’s pride. Uno no tiene que perder su orgullo. —Ch’orti’ ex-recruit Our blood is always Ch’orti’. Kach’ich’er Ch’orti’ sieeempre. —Benjamín, former Ch’orti’ Radio announcer We will no longer be known as indigenous peoples, but as Ch’orti’s. —Rigoberto, Ch’orti’ leader R ichard Adams (1996) has identified a pattern of indigenous ethnic abandonment in Guatemala. In townships where Ladinos, or nonMayas , constitute over 15% of the population—as is the case throughout the Ch’orti’ region—distinctive indigenous culture and identity tends to be abandoned rapidly. The Ch’orti’ predicament offers some explanations . Ladinos by definition occupy the role of mediator between local politics and the state, and between local and global markets. As the indigenous subsistence lifestyle has been undermined, Mayas are compelled to become dependent on the market and therefore the Ladinos, but Mayas have little experience in Ladino culture. Ladinos take advantage of Maya Chapter Eight 270 vulnerability by artificially cheapening Maya labor, products, and persons. Moreover, Mayas have faced repression whenever they have organized to counteract Ladino tactics. Many have chosen simply to abandon their indigenous ethnicity as best they can, especially in situations where Ladinos are present. Some even take the Ladino ideology of indigenous inferiority and backwardness to heart, feeling that they were foolishly naive to believe that they were at the center of the world, because they are really at the margins of the global market. They base their identity in new options such as religions, the army, and consumerism. Others, including those who have tried to become Ladino but found themselves excluded by racism, have taken everyone by surprise by uniting to forge a new, positive Maya identity. I was fortunate to be present when this movement gained momentum in the Ch’orti’ region in 1992. While many development projects have inadequately dealt with problems of ethnic identity and even exacerbated them, the Maya Movement attends foremost to ethnic pride. Some development experts like Kleymeyer (Kleymeyer, ed. 1994) see “culture,” or historical self-recognition, as essential for the proud identity, optimism, self-esteem, vitality, unification, and courage needed to motivate marginalized peoples. In the words of indigenous leader Jorge Arduz,“to be productive, man has to value himself, which means being able to understand where he stands in society and history ” (Breslin 1994:46). Valuing indigenous knowledge and reconstructing their history through autoethnography, radio, plays, musical performances, craft fairs, poetry, local museums, and native language courses can produce the “cultural energy” (Kleymeyer, ed. 1994) necessary for sustained development, rather than letting it crumble as soon as the project personnel leave the area. After all, indigenous peoples have the greatest investment in and knowledge of the places they inhabit (Kleymeyer 1994:197). The Maya Movement It is difficult to pinpoint when the Maya Movement started, as many pathbreaking events in Maya organizing occurred in western Guatemala in the twentieth century (Fisher 1996; Bastos and Camus 2003). R. Adams (1996:20) writes that the political opening of 1945–60 provided many Mayas the opportunity to abandon their Indian identity, but when they realized soon thereafter that the Ladino alternative was hollow, the seeds of indigenous activism were planted (see Fisher 1996). One could argue that Catholic Action Network in the 1960s–70s, which united Mayas under the The Ch’orti’ Maya Movement 271 rubric of liberation theology and grassroots development, was in a sense a pan-Maya movement even though its methods ultimately led to the adoption of Western cultures (Bastos and Camus 1996:20–22). Starting in 1972, “Indigenous Seminars,” or conferences on Maya languages, also united Mayas, especially schoolteachers, while the Francisco Marroquín Linguistic Project (which researches, publishes, and teaches Maya languages ) was being formed (Bastos and Camus 1996:24–25). Such ethnic organization was severely repressed during the massacres of 1979–83. As the army sought to placate international investment in the mid1980s by diminishing the repression and allowing democratic elections, some popular organizations courageously emerged and joined with the overall resistance movement. They demanded the rights of widows (CONAVIGUA), relatives of the disappeared (GAM), the displaced (CONDEG ), the forcibly recruited (CERJ), and others severely affected by the violence , and were thus regarded as subversives by the army (Bastos and Camus 1996:9). None of these groups had...