From Guatemala With Love

Reading Rigoberta Menchu’s testimony was very interesting and almost heartbreaking to comprehend such a tragic way to grow up. I found myself struggling to follow her choppy sentences but soon discovered that she never went to school and speaking Spanish was difficult for her (let alone translating her words into English).

She had spoken about her father’s time at a fincas, which is a farm or a plantation and even said she grew up on one on the south coast of Guatemala. She talked about how her parents had spent everything they earned and had racked up so much debt, that they had to forfeit their house to pay for them. She had to eventually give up her oldest son, which turned out to be Rigoberta’s father, to another man so he wouldn’t go hungry. He wasn’t allowed in the house because the family found him repulsive from being sweaty and working so hard. Eventually, after he turned 18 he had to work day and night to provide for his mother and his brothers but unfortunately they were too poor to buy medicine and healthcare for their grandmother that she ended up dying and Rigoberta’s father and his brothers were left without parents. Eventually, the siblings had to split up and work in different parts of the coast.

It’s amazing to see the effect that food has on people in all walks of life. I believe I read something about the United Fruit Co. (whichis now Chiquita) and after reading about them and hearing discussions on the corporation, it sounds completely terrible. I think I remember them being linked to a terrorist organization sometime back too.

Reflecting back on what we learned in Stuffedand Starved, United Fruit Co. is exploiting and essentially starving the exporters of these crops. I remember someone in class saying that the company actually tried to stop the publishing of the book. I see this occurring in the testimony of Rigoberta Menchu.

It kind of makes me feel a bit guilty walking into a grocery store, surrounded by our genetically modified goods that were snatched from the mouths of starving people and children… something needs to change soon.