Saturday, January 6, 2024: 4:10 PM
Golden Gate 8 (Hilton Union Square)
This paper examines the emergence of new forms of organization among
Guatemalan rural workers during the 1970s. It does so by analyzing the pages of De Sol a Sol (“from sunrise to sunset”), a Guatemalan monthly periodical that reported on politics and social matters, including the working conditions of rural laborers. First published in 1974 by a group of peasant activists, this Spanish language publication has received little or no attention by scholars of the Cold War. It was distributed among the Maya indigenous and ladino (non-indigenous) workers of the country’s coffee, sugar, and cotton plantations. Located on western and southern
Guatemala, these agricultural estates constituted (along with banana plantations) the core of the export-oriented agricultural sector. A close reading of De Sol a Sol reveals a nascent social and political discourse that challenged the country’s history of state-sponsored violence, capitalist development, and socioeconomic and racial inequality. Its editors put forward an alternative vision of society, one that called for the formation of a class-based social movement consisting of indigenous and non-indigenous workers. Their counter-hegemonic message was partly
motivated by the violence of Guatemala’s civil war (1960-96), which pitted U.S.-backed military governments against Marxist guerrilla fighters. It resulted in approximately 200,000 people dead, most of whom were Maya people who died at the hands of the state. The periodical’s reportage was also radicalized by Liberation Theology, which interpreted society using the gospel of Jesus Christ. Influenced by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), Liberation Theology led Catholics to view the Church as a living and changing community. De Sol a Sol’s editors epitomized the rise of new cadre of Catholic Maya peasant activists who opposed violence, racism, and inequality against indigenous peoples and worked to create the conditions for the “liberation” of all marginalized groups through a class movement.
Guatemalan rural workers during the 1970s. It does so by analyzing the pages of De Sol a Sol (“from sunrise to sunset”), a Guatemalan monthly periodical that reported on politics and social matters, including the working conditions of rural laborers. First published in 1974 by a group of peasant activists, this Spanish language publication has received little or no attention by scholars of the Cold War. It was distributed among the Maya indigenous and ladino (non-indigenous) workers of the country’s coffee, sugar, and cotton plantations. Located on western and southern
Guatemala, these agricultural estates constituted (along with banana plantations) the core of the export-oriented agricultural sector. A close reading of De Sol a Sol reveals a nascent social and political discourse that challenged the country’s history of state-sponsored violence, capitalist development, and socioeconomic and racial inequality. Its editors put forward an alternative vision of society, one that called for the formation of a class-based social movement consisting of indigenous and non-indigenous workers. Their counter-hegemonic message was partly
motivated by the violence of Guatemala’s civil war (1960-96), which pitted U.S.-backed military governments against Marxist guerrilla fighters. It resulted in approximately 200,000 people dead, most of whom were Maya people who died at the hands of the state. The periodical’s reportage was also radicalized by Liberation Theology, which interpreted society using the gospel of Jesus Christ. Influenced by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), Liberation Theology led Catholics to view the Church as a living and changing community. De Sol a Sol’s editors epitomized the rise of new cadre of Catholic Maya peasant activists who opposed violence, racism, and inequality against indigenous peoples and worked to create the conditions for the “liberation” of all marginalized groups through a class movement.
See more of: Cold War Guerrilla Movements and Social Activism in Cuba, Guatemala, and Argentina
See more of: Conference on Latin American History
See more of: Affiliated Society Sessions
See more of: Conference on Latin American History
See more of: Affiliated Society Sessions
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