Voices from Exile

by Montejo, Victor

• ISBN13: 9780806131719
• ISBN10: 0806131713
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of Oklahoma Pr

Summary

Elilal, exile, is the condition of thousands of Mayas who have fled their homelands in Guatemala to escape repression and even death at the hands of their government. In this book, Victor Montejo, who is both a Maya expatriate and an anthropologist, gives voice to those who until now have struggled in silence--but who nevertheless have found ways to reaffirm and celebrate their Mayaness. Voices from Exile is the authentic story of one group of Mayas from the Kuchumatan highlands who fled into Mexico and sought refuge there. Montejo's combination of autobiography, history, political analysis, and testimonial narrative offers a profound exploration of state terror and its inescapable human cost.

Author Biography

Victor Montejo is Associate Professor in the Department of Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of El Q'anil: The Man of Lightning, Testimony: The Death of a Guatemalan Village, The Bird Who Cleans the World and Other Mayan Fables, and Sculpted Stones: Poems.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix	(2)
Acknowledgments	xi
1. The Anthropologist and the Other	3	(23)
2. Toward a Maya History of Guatemala	26	(16)
3. The Advent of Violence in the Kuchumatan Highlands	42	(18)
4. Military Control of the Highlands	60	(22)
5. One Man's Testimony	82	(23)
6. The Journey to Mexico	105	(28)
7. Life in the Refugee Camps	133	(11)
8. Strategies of Cultural Survival	144	(40)
9. Ethnic Relations and Cultural Revival in the Refugee Camps	184	(21)
10. Songs and Poetry from the Camps	205	(15)
11. Returning Home	220	(18)
12. From the Present into the Future	238	(7)
Notes	245	(14)
Bibliography	259	(18)
Index	277