by Enrique Gutiérrez
Staff Writer
When Rigoberta Menchú speaks, people generally pay close attention.
Founders Auditorium was the site where a voice that crossed both the international and cultural borders was heard. That voice belonged to 1992 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Menchú.
Through the help of interpreter Madeline Rios of Claremont, Menchú spoke to the La Verne community on Thursday, April 27, at 10:30 a.m. and 7 p.m.
She spoke about human beings, about her family and how it was exterminated and about the hope for the future. Her lecture included discussions about her life, about society and its children. She spoke about human rights.
Menchú gained world-wide recognition for her labor pro-human rights, especially the rights of the indigenous people in Guatemala.
It was this type of work which earned her the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992.
Phil Hofer, international student services director, and a committee invited Menchú to speak as part of the Multicultural Week festivities at the University of La Verne.
Hofer had some some contact with Menchú before she received the Nobel Peace Prize, and the committee felt that it was worth a try to invite her to come speak.
“I like talking to university students because I’m talking to the future politicians, the academics,” said Menchú.
She talked directly to the youth, encouraging people to care about humans and to take action.
“Life goes by fast when one is useful,” she said. “Get old thinking in humanity rather than thinking about your computer, or even worse letting your computer think for you.
“I don’t live based on utopias. I’d like to see results before I die.”
“It’s an honor to have a Nobel Peace Prize winner on our campus and, I think, very appropriate because we have a long heritage of embracing peaceful resolution to conflict,” said ULV President Stephen Morgan. “She is a shining example of bringing that to life.”
The speaker, of Mayan origin, was welcomed with a standing ovation at Founders Auditorium where she gave two lectures.
The morning lecture was entitled, “Human Rights and Minority Rights,” but it turned out to be more of a narrative of Menchú’s struggle in Guatemala.
Menchú said that about a dozen of her relatives, including her parents and two brothers, were killed by military forces.
“Twenty years ago they burned my father to death, they tortured my mother, they burned my brother to death and shot my other brother,” said Menchú. “We weren’t famous because of our ideals or values or culture.
“We were famous because we became a sign of terror. Our last name was forbidden. That was worse for us, the surviving relative,” she said.
That was when Menchú said she decided “to cross the frontiers of the atrocities.”
“The fight for human rights is not a temporal fight,” she said, “it is a permanent fight.
“To work for the rights of humanity is to work for our rights. It is to work for the rights of our children. It is to work for the rights of the community where we live.”
She said that people have three postures to choose from. “We can be complies, silent people or activists to prevent those atrocities from expanding.”
She has participated in different movements including the campaign to name this year the year of the culture of the peace.
Nevertheless, she said although most countries sign peace agreements it is the citizens who should obligate them to enforce those promises.
According to Menchú, the academic education is obsolete and isolated if it does not have a social function.
“It has to be integral with the conception of a multicultural world,” said Menchú. “Science should be for the service of the community. Science shouldn’t be a way of the problems suffered by the great vast majority of the world population.
“Our ancestral cultures should be compatible with the occidental culture with mutual respect.”
Freshman Kim Reed said, “I really like what she had to say about science, and the arts and education working in a socially responsible manner to further human rights and the responsibility that lies in each of us.”
“Your education is not just for making money. It’s to be used for the good of society, to make it better to meet needs of society,” said Hofer in response to Menchú’s first lecture.
“As I look at what is happening in the world today is human beings who cause much of the pain and suffering for other human beings. I think it’s important for us to have opportunities to hear from people who have suffered such atrocities. Hopefully it heightens our awareness and inspires us to do something about that and to try to make a difference in the ways that we can to help to make the world a better place,” said Dr. Morgan.
“I hope that students hear that there is, there was, there has been a significant level of abuse of human rights in Guatemala,” said Hofer.
“I hope that students learn something about that history, because I think that when we learn, then we better prepare ourselves to speak to our own government about how our government uses our tax dollars, uses the resources that we contribute,” he said.
At night, Menchú’s lecture was on the hopes for the future.
She began by stating everybody should set goals, otherwise people end up doing useless things for humanity.
She said the hope of humanity relies on the goals that people set. She listed crossing cultural borders, learning to listen and braking the silence as important steps toward a better society.
“I have crossed cultural borders. That’s why I’ve wanted to learn Spanish, other languages, to understand the differences even amongst the indigenous,” she said.
“We need to know how to listen to people. Their needs, their problems,” she said. “We shouldn’t prejudge people because of their political, cultural, economic or class condition,” said Menchú. “Knowing how to listen is part of the hope of humanity.”
The third aspect she pointed out was becoming loud.
“We need to break the silence about all the injustices, atrocities, intolerance, racism,” she said. “All those gaps that separate our communities.”
However, she warned the audience saying that action requires “courage, bravery and decision.”
Menchú, the author of “I, Rigoberta Menchú,” said how important it was to her to get her autobiography published. She said it was the most important goal she has accomplished over the years.
“The book is a statement that I didn’t stay silent before the genocide in Guatemala at the moment that it was happening,” she said. “I am prosecuting crimes against humanity.”
She encouraged everybody to attain a better global vision in a world composed of many different cultures.
“The world is multicultural,” said Menchú. She also advised people to stay true to their roots.
“Do not lose your identity. Do not lose your language.The language is the soul of a culture,” she said.
“Learn other languages, English, French, whatever but do not lose your first language. When we kill the language we put the entire culture in agony,” she said.
Junior Kat Przybylska, an ASF representative, said, “I hope that the people who actually went, took with them the belief that yes, one person can make a difference.”
“Here is someone whose family was killed, who faced tremendous odds in her life and who in spite of those odds and in spite of tremendous tragedy, has one of the most wonderful smiles and speaks eloquently to hope, struggle and put effort to change situations that are bad,” said Hofer.
“I was very pleased with the number of students and faculty who were here today. We’re a learning community and learning to take places outside the classroom as well as in the classroom, and this was an opportunity to hear from someone outside of our community who has a lot to offer,” said Dr. Morgan.
Menchú was also invited to speak at other universities like Scripps College, Occidental College, University of California Riverside and Cal Poly Pomona.
She also spoke at a press conference at the International Institute of Los Angeles. She had a reception there with city and government leaders as well as Indigenous groups in the Los Angeles area.
–Staff Writer Crystal Apilado contributed to this story
Enrique Gutiérrez
