In 1959, Rigoberta Menchú Tum was born in the Maya-Quiché village of Chimel, Guatemala. Raised in a community that continues to practice their millennium-old culture, she experienced racism, dis crimination, and poverty working on the fincas as a cotton picker and as a domestic in Guatemala City. Always aware of the injustices that she, her family, and her fellow indigenous suffered, she became actively involved in the labor, campesino, and indigenous rights movements such as the Committee of the Peasant Union. Self-educated, at 17, she taught herself Spanish in order to better represent her people's causes and negotiate with her oppressors. Because of their activism, several of her family members were tortured and assassinated by the Guatemalan Army. Mrs. Menchú Tum had to flee to Mexico in 1980. From there she continued her work organizing peasant's resistance movements and was the co-founder of the United Representation of the Guatemalan Opposition.8 In 1983, Mrs. Menchú Tum published a testimonial book, I, Rigoberta Menchu, An Indian Woman in Guatemala . She also continued her work to promote the causes of indigenous peoples. In 1992, she became not only the first indigenous person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, but also the youngest to receive this honor. Since then she has become the Promoter of the International Decade of Indigenous Peoples Worldwide, is the personal advisor to the General Director of the United Nations Eco nomic and Social Council (UNESCO), and currently presides over the Indigenous Initiative for Peace.
-Abel