Herstory: 10 Guatemalan Women Who Changed the Course of History

Mar 20, 2020 | Melissa Vida
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Guatemala’s Indigenous peoples make up 60% of the country’s population, yet somehow Indigenous people—and especially Indigenous women—rarely made it into history books. Overall, there seems to be a historical knowledge gap between Ancient Mayan Civilization time and the Guatemalan internal armed conflict that lasted from 1960 until 1996.

To talk about significant women in the history of what is today known as Guatemala is to talk about ancestral and modern forms of sexism, western colonization, systemic racism, brutal genocides in a counterinsurgency war backed by the United States, gendered violence, and an ongoing land grab on Indigenous territory.