Educación y éxito: el acceso de las niñas indígenas a la educación en Guatemala

De Graef, Erika

Educación y éxito: el acceso de las niñas indígenas a la educación en Guatemala

Persistent URL

https://dspace.allegheny.edu/handle/10456/54782

Author(s)

De Graef, Erika

Date Issued

April 22, 2022

Abstract

Indigenous Guatemalan people have faced great discrimination and oppression throughout the 500+ years since the arrival of Spanish conquistadors. Specifically, the Civil War of Guatemala and El Salvador (1960-1996) resulted in over 650 massacres and the deaths of over 200,000 indigenous people. Such oppression has caused failures in infrastructure, education, and healthcare across the central and western highlands of Guatemala, areas inhabited mostly by indigenous groups. 50% of the indigenous population suffers from malnutrition; 27.5% have access to a hospital or medical center; and less than 50% of school-age children are able to attend a school. These problems have a particular effect on girls and women, as Mayan traditions maintain that women have less independence, authority, and autonomy than their male counterparts. By investing in these communities and these children, Guatemala would improve the well-being of all citizens, indigenous or otherwise, as well as the GDP of the nation. The documentary works of Patricia Goudvis, along with the writings of Rigoberta Menchú, provide insight into the conditions of indigenous girls during the Civil War and how those conditions have affected the adolescence and adulthood of that generation. This thesis is composed of three chapters: the first establishes the living conditions for modern indigenous Guatemalans; the second describes the Civil War and introduces the activist Rigoberta Menchú; and the third uses documentary evidence to demonstrate how investment in young women leads to a healthier, happier, and more productive population in the future.

Major

Spanish

Honors

Spanish, 2022

First Reader(s)

Scerbo, Rosita