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ix A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S Acknowledgments The story explored in this book has held me in its grip for many years. My profound thanks go to all of those who made this work possible, especially the many Guatemalans who shared their memories of the past, reliving a painfully difficult era, but also showing it to be a time of hope and great courage. This history was recounted to me by over one hundred interviewees whose patience and willingness to share their experiences were deeply touching and greatly appreciated. A special thanks to Emeterio Toj Medrano for the many hours of conversation, and to Miguel Alvarado, Victoriano Alvarez, Pedro Bal Cumés, Ricardo Cajas Mejía, Pablo Ceto, Gregorio Chay, Amalia Coy Pop, Marco Antonio de Paz, Pedro Esquina, Ricardo Falla, Tomás García, Jorge Luis García de León, Domingo Hernández Ixcoy, Juana, Jerónimo Juárez, Teresa Leiva Yax, Catarina León Medrano, Alberto Mazariegos, Estela Morán, María Elvira Quijivix, Ulises Quijivix Yax, Isaías Raconcoj, Concepción Ramírez Mendoza, Emilia Salanic, Enrique Luis Sam Colop, José Serech, Nicolas Miguel Sisay, Magdalena Tumin Palaj, Fidelina Tux Chub, Juan Vásquez Tuíz, Catalina Ventura, Catarina Xum, the staff at the Voz de Atitlán, and the late Antonio Pop Caal. My thanks to the former reinas indígenas who spoke with me about their experiences as activist queens, including one of the young women continuing their struggles into the twenty-first century, the 2000–2001 Rabín Ahau, Mercedes García Marroquín. Maryknoll fathers and brothers were extraordinarily generous with their time, among them Father Dan Jensen, Father Bill Donnelly, Bro. John Blazo, the Rev. Dave La Buda, and Bro. Bob Butsch. Finally, to all of those women and men who wish to be unnamed in this study, my heartfelt thanks for your willingness to speak with me despite the climate of fear that continues to hang over Guatemala. The Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamérica (CIRMA) in Antigua provided an institutional home during this study, and I am x A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S especially grateful to the staff of its Archivo Histórico. I’d also like to acknowledge the valuable assistance of the staff of the Biblioteca Nacional’s Hemeroteca, as well as the librarians of the Hemeroteca at the Archivo General de Centro América (AGCA) in Guatemala City. The research for this book was first supported by the University of Pittsburgh and its Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS). I thank Pittsburgh’s CLAS for summer field research grants, a Cole and Marty Blasier Research Scholarship, and a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship. I gratefully acknowledge two Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellowships from Pittsburgh’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and fieldwork support from a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship. I would like to thank the US Institute of Peace and its Peace Scholar program for support of writing and the American Association of University Women and their American Fellowship program for support of final book revisions. Thanks, too, to the College of William and Mary and its faculty summer research grants program for research support. All views expressed in this book are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of these funding institutions. Thanks to George Reid Andrews, Alejandro de la Fuente, Lara Putnam, and Joshua Lund for their thoughtful and serious engagement with this work from the beginning, and to the readers and editors at University of New Mexico Press, especially Sarah Soliz. For sharing her unforgettable images of Guatemala in the 1980s, a big thank you to a woman who just may be the world’s most generous photographer, Jean-Marie Simon. Thanks, too, to others who have read and commented on all or part of the manuscript, among them Abigail Adams, Arturo Arias, Greg Grandin, Walter Little, Ellie Walsh, the anonymous reviewers for Hispanic American Historical Review, and at William and Mary, Fred Corney and Andy Fisher. I’d like to acknowledge the important presence of Michael Jiménez in this book as well. Despite the fact that it came together after his death, his wonderfully expansive written comments on early versions remain a source of inspiration. He and all of these individuals made the work exciting, fulfilling, and always challenging. I take full responsibility for the faults...

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