Rigoberta Menchu, Guatemalan Indigenous Leader, Speaks in Davis Oct. 21

Dear Friends and Neighbors:

On Friday, October 21, 2005 Nobel Peace laureate Rigoberta Menchú, Guatemalan human rights activist and indigenous leader, will speak on “Human rights and Indigenous Peoples" in the Mondavi Center's Jackson Hall at UC Davis. This event is not part of the regular Mondavi programming, but is sponsored by the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas and a collection of other UCD units. We are eager to spread the word of this important event to the wider community, but we do not have access to the Mondavi Center's staff or marketing system to help with publicity. We're counting on you to help out.

We hope that you and people in your networks can help us announce this event, so that as many people as possible will be able to take this opportunity to hear one of today’s premier spokespeople for human rights, for Latin Americans, for indigenous peoples, and for women. Although we are especially interested in reaching people with interests in or personal roots in Central America, Rigoberta Menchu's message is one that everyone should hear. We also want to reach young people--those for whom 1992 was a long time ago.

We have priced this event as low as possible, to help make it available to the widest possible spectrum of residents in the central and northern California region. Proceeds go to support the work of the Rigoberta Menchú Tum Foundation < http://www.rigobertamenchu.org/> Tickets are $10 for general admission, and $5 for students and those under 18. They are available at on the Web at <http://www.mondaviarts,org > (go to the calendar for October and click on “Speaker” in the Oct. 21 box), by e-mail tickets [at] ucdavis.edu, tel. 530-754-ARTS. We will post updates on this event at < http://hia.ucdavis.edu/hianotices.htm>

Best known in the U.S. for her 1984 autobiography "I, Rigoberta Menchú, an Indian Woman in Guatemala," she was born in 1959 and spent her early years in a remote village in the Guatemalan highlands. She got her start as a social activist at age 11, in a Catholic organization called the Daughters of Mary. Through the 1970 and ‘80s she continued her social and political activities on behalf of indigenous peoples, even as most of her family died in the political violence that plagued Guatemala in that era. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, the year of the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s first voyage to the New World. In addition to her work as head of her namesake Foundation, since January 2004 has held the position of Good Will Ambassador for the Peace Accords in Guatemala, in the administration of President Oscar Berger.

Rigoberta Menchú takes indigenous peoples' ancestral spirituality as a source of wisdom, interpretation, inspiration, and energy. As Nobel Peace Prize laureate, indigenous woman and survivor of genocide in Guatemala, she seeks the observance of a code of ethics for an era of peace, as her contribution to humanity:

“There is no peace without justice; no justice without equality; no equality without development; no development without democracy; no democracy without respect to the identity and dignity of cultures and peoples.”

Please help us spread the word, and plan to attend.
In Solidarity,
Tom Holloway

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RIGOBERTA MENCHU, Oct. 21, 8pm, Mondavi Center--info at
< http://hia.ucdavis.edu/hianotices.htm>
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Thomas H. Holloway
Director, Hemispheric Institute on the Americas
<http://hia.ucdavis.edu>
Professor of History
University of California Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616, USA
Phone 530-754-9453
FAX 530-752-5655