Nobel winner, activist schedules UA lecture

Guatemalan’s losses in civil war led to advocacy for rights of indigenous peoples

FAYETTEVILLE — Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu will speak Oct. 13 at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

Menchu won the prize in 1992 for her work advocating for social justice and the rights of indigenous peoples. Born in Guatemala to a poor peasant family, Menchu spoke out against government oppression during that country’s civil war.

“She became an activist and an organizer as a result of her family’s experiences in order to fight for the rights of her people, for land and for self-determination and dignity,” said Kirstin Erickson, director of UA’s Latin American and Latino Studies program.

Menchu’s brother and father were killed by the army and her mother also died after being tortured and raped, according to biographical information from the Nobel Prize website.

Menchu will give the 2015 Winthrop Rockefeller Distinguished Lecture at 7 p.m. at the Arkansas Union. She will speak in Spanish, with an interpreter present.

A day before her talk, Menchbu will join the Trail of Tears Commemorative Walk that begins at the university campus and ends at Trail of Tears Park near Stadium Drive and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Cherokee Indians in the 1830s were forced by the U.S. government to relocate from their homelands, a journey that left an estimated 4,000 dead.

Menchu will also hold a question-and-answer session at 9 a.m. Oct. 13 at UA’s Mullins Library. The event is open to the public but seating is limited, with preference given to students and Hispanic community members.

Erickson said a UA graduate student from Guatemala Mirna Ordonez Sandoval reached out to Menchu to discuss the possibility of coming to Arkansas.

“One of the messages that she’s going to deliver is about peace and tolerance, which I think that translates not only to special groups of people but everybody here,” Ordonez Sandoval said. “We need to be tolerant and look always for peace to build a better community, a better society.”

Before Menchu’s arrival, UA will host a daylong symposium Oct. 8 bringing together scholars to discuss her legacy and activism.

Erickson said Menchu’s travel and honorarium for speaking were covered by a $25,000 grant from the Little Rock-based Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. Erickson said the speaker’s fee will support Menchu’s nonprofit foundation. She declined to specify exactly how much Menchu is being paid.