Discrimination

After a funny last entry, here’s a more serious one, but it’s good. So read it!

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Discrimination of all forms is rampant in Guatemala: racism, classism, sexism and based on religion and sexual orientation. After growing up in Oregon, where it doesn’t exist as much, or at least where I was blind to it because I’m white, living in Guatemala is quite an awakening and can be very trying at times.

Being a woman in Guatemala has been quite difficult in all aspects of my life (and from talking with others, it is true for the majority of female PCVs).

· Safety – I’m very accustomed to being independent, going where I want when I want, but here that causes me problems.
· Being respected professionally – I’m typically the only woman in meetings and other work settings. Thankfully, I have had luck with gaining the respect of most of the men I work with, but of course there are still those that don’t respect me, for example, when they spread nasty rumors about me in the office. Or when I try to talk about a project and the man interrupts me to tell me how beautiful I am.
· Social scene – At home I have lots of male friends, but sadly, I have few real friends who are Guatemalan males. Nearly all have something else in mind and friendships just don’t exist. Female friends are tough to come by because they are too busy taking care of their families and doing chores. I also cannot be seen drinking in my town; I would appear disreputable. But men can.
· General respect – A day does not pass when I don’t receive some sort of whistle, cat call or comment while walking down the street, riding my bike, running or just being. Yesterday in the park some middle school students started whistling and making comments and I retorted, “Necesitan aprender a respetar.” (You need to learn to respect.) Which just made it worse, but I get tired of it.

Obviously it’s hard for a young woman from the States to try to acclimate to this machista culture and be happy and successful, but for the most part I have managed. I’ve really learned to appreciate the equality that we have gained at home. But just imagine what the women here go through. Maybe it’s not as hard for them because they have never experienced true respect and equality, but that’s no reason to say that it’s okay. People always ask me if I’ll just find a man here and stay in Guatemala. I really don’t think so, and a big reason is all that I just mentioned, and due to the phrase I hate most, “tengo que pedir permiso.” Translation (language and context): I have to ask my husband for permission to _(fill in the blank)_ (go get ice cream with you, take a class at the university, go to a dance, go on a trip, buy something, etc.). There’s a big difference between asking permission and informing/coming to a mutual decision. I hope that one day these women, or at least their children, will be lucky enough to experience the equality that we take for granted in the United States.

Now let’s take this to the next level, one that I cannot empathize with but that nevertheless causes me pain when I hear/see it. Racism. Here the racism mainly comes from the ladinos (non-indigenous) and is against the indigenous people. (While there is reverse discrimination, I wouldn’t consider that as much of a problem, more so, a form of protection and retaliation.) Yesterday I had a long conversation about this with an amazing woman that I have been so lucky to meet: Martha, an indigenous woman who works as a forestry technician and is studying to be an environmental engineer. I’ve always thought she was pretty amazing, but even more so now after hearing the story of her childhood.

She was raised in a village of the town of Salcaja which is very close to the city of Xela. Salcaja was founded by the Spaniards in the 16th century. Most likely, they displaced (violently) the locals that had lived in those fertile lands for generations. As is all too common in this hemisphere, the European settlers took over the land and made it theirs while turning the indigenous people into slave laborers or at least banishing them to less productive soils. In the time of Martha’s grandfather (1950s or ‘60s), they were forced to do labor for the municipality without being paid and if they refused, there would be punishment. The story she related to me was that in preparation for the town’s feria, the mayor would order all of the indigenous men to go to the mountain and bring wood down to build the rodeo grounds (carrying it on their back with a rope tied to around their forehead for extra support). When they turned it in, they weren’t thanked, simply told to come back in 8 days and take it down. They weren’t even allowed to attend the rodeo.

When Martha grew up in the 1980s, she felt a definite divide between the town and the village. At school she and her indigenous peers were mistreated verbally and physically. Martha never learned Quiche (key-che), her family’s native language, because it was a way for her parents to protect her and her siblings – one less reason to be discriminated against. Discrimination destroys language, culture and heritage, not to mention hopes, dreams and self-esteem. But Martha and her family fought to overcome this. As I mentioned, she is working professionally in a traditionally male-dominated field. Her brother is studying in Cuba to become a doctor. Her sister is about to graduate as an agricultural engineer. Her father is a respected principal of a school. But it was not without cost. Her family is isolated from the rest of the community, be it ladino or indigenous, because of their resolve to succeed.

Racism is not only a problem of the past in Guatemala. It continues today: just five years ago the mayor of Salcaja commented on the proposal of paving the road beyond the town (where the ladinos live) into the village (where the indigenous live): “Only barefoot indios walk out there, so why would we bother?” Statements like that are clearly racist and I have little hope that the people who think like that will one day change. To me, what’s worse is when people make racist comments that they don’t even understand to be discriminatory. I heard a coworker advise a friend that she should not send her children to a certain school because only indigenous kids matriculate there. These are people who have become so accustomed to inequality, that they think their level of treatment of indigenous people is fair. Equal. I suppose that’s the problem; they are consciously seeing the difference and trying to force what they can of “equal” treatment. True equality will only come when it is not forced; when people no longer see the differences and just see another human being. The only reason to define heritage would be to take pride in culture.

My conversation with Martha changed my perspective. I thought that coming from Alta Verapaz, which is years, perhaps decades, behind Quetzaltenango in development, that out here there would be less discrimination, and until yesterday, I thought that I had been proven right with what I had witnessed. But I was wrong. The discrimination is simply manifested differently. It’s less common to hear the outright racist comments, for example. Yet they still surface. Most of all, though, because I’m not indigenous, I cannot feel/see/experience all the racism that does occur. I suppose that’s a lesson that we need to learn in the States. Those of us who are not in the minority cannot say that discrimination is no longer a problem. What do we know? You have to listen to those who are forced to suffer through it to know the truth.

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Thank you for reading this and I hope you will take some time to think about your own encounters (whichever side or simply as a witness) with discrimination, appreciate what others have to go through, start discussions about it and try to add your grain of sand to the fight for equality.