I Ask for Justice: Maya Women, Dictators, and Crime in Guatemala, 1898–1944

1. Dictators, Indígenas, and the Legal System: Intersections of Race and Crime

CHAPTER 1 Dictators, Indígenas, and the Legal System: Intersections of Race and Crime More than any other institution—including schools and the military— courts were where competing views of nation, identity, and citizenship were contested. Although some historians have argued that early twentiethcentury courts were illegitimate and anemic,¹ my study indicates otherwise. As one of the few venues that facilitated the integration of indígenas and poor ladinos particularly by instilling in them the habit of submitting their differences with each other to judgments by duly constituted authorities, courts were crucial for state building. The courts can be used as an analytical tool to measure the balance of power between people and the state. Framing cases that resulted from the state’s criminal enforcement against those initiated by people themselves allows for a nuanced understanding of the limits and persuasiveness of state power. In the state’s campaign against moonshiners (Chapter 2) and its attempt to regulate highland markets (Chapter 3), the state—mainly represented by the police and other security forces, department judges, and local authorities—was enforcing its laws. Caught in the courts’ clutches, defendants sought to mitigate their punishment by pointing out how officials had either overstepped their bounds or failed to build a state where the poor could thrive without breaking the law. The reproductive-crime litigation that informs Chapter 4 was also the result of the enforcement of state laws. Yet local indigenous and ladino women initiated this litigation as often as state representatives did. As such, the dynamics in these cases were more complicated than the state simply exerting its power and defendants trying to curb it; at times women used the courts for their own ends. The power relations and dynamics in the courtroom became even more equivocal in cases that were almost exclusively initiated by victims, such as litigation of domestic violence (Chapter 5) and defamation (Chapter 6). In these volun- 28 I Ask for Justice tary suits, plaintiffs used the courts to gain leverage against their aggressors or rivals. By inviting the intervention of judicial officials, victims acknowledged the court’s and state’s authority, even if only to settle disputes. Although poor indígenas and ladinos who used the legal system provide one example of the state’s ability to peacefully reproduce its legitimacy, their litigation was seldom an unqualified endorsement of the state. Even under its gaze, indigenous litigants pointed to the need to consider poverty and other social injustices when defining crimes. In their court testimonies , poor, indigenous, female bootleggers pointed out that they had little choice but to produce and sell moonshine to survive. While intellectuals and state agents asserted that indígenas’ backwardness and culture explained their failures, indigenous litigants emphasized their diligence and adaptability to highlight capitalist modernization’s shortcomings. The laconic nature of most rulings makes parsing judges’ perspectives difficult, but when examined collectively, the rulings suggest that judicial officials tacked between harboring a sense of despair because their judgments seldom changed people’s behavior (as domestic violence litigation reveals ) and a sense that their rulings could help keep peace among locals (principally when magistrates encouraged nonviolent responses to insults by upholding individuals’ honor). Particularly when initiated by indígenas or poor ladinos, voluntary suits offer an opportunity to examine the balance between plaintiffs who wanted to use the state, via the legal system, and of- ficials who may have wanted to take advantage of teaching moments to civilize indios or hegemonic moments to show poor and marginalized litigants who ruled. Understanding who is doing what to whom and who is using whom in judicial processes demands close attention to the shifting power relations and adulterated narratives in the judicial record. Judicial Processes in Early Twentieth-Century Highland Guatemala Often coexisting peacefully, indigenous and state-sanctioned judicial systems were not always at odds. For indígenas who felt wronged, generally the first step was to approach the local indigenous judicial system presided over by indigenous alcaldes (mayors) or principales (politico-religious leaders ) in the municipalidad indígena. Generally conducted in their native language , indigenous municipalities’ business, actions, and exchanges were seldom recorded, and thus historians have little access to them; oral histories and contemporary ethnographies provide a broad sense of the parameters but few specifics. The majority of complaints brought before indigenous au- Intersections of Race and Crime 29 thorities...