H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-LatAm@h-net.msu.edu (September 2000)

Victor Montejo.  _Voices from Exile: Violence and Survival in Modern Maya
History_.  Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999.  xiv + 287
pp.  Tables, maps, notes, bibliography, and index.  $25.95 (cloth), ISBN
0-8061-3171-3.

Reviewed for H-LatAm by Steven V. Hunsaker, Division of Foreign Languages,
Emporia State University.  <hunsakes@emporia.edu>

Auto-Anthropology

Few Latin American countries have captured the attention of outside
observers to the extent that Guatemala has over recent years.  Increased
interest in the pre-Columbian past, appalling human rights abuses, political
turmoil, and the emergence of Rigoberta Menchu Tum as a cultural and
political leader have combined to focus a great deal of academic and
journalistic attention on Guatemala.  Victor Montejo's _Voices from Exile_
builds on that interest, making an important contribution to the already
extensive bibliography on the plight of the contemporary Maya by
concentrating on the political, cultural, and artistic consequences of exile
for the thousands of Mayas who fled their country in the 1980s.

Importantly, Montejo makes that contribution in terms of his ability to
escape the dichotomy between the anthropologist and the "other."  Montejo,
who teaches in the Department of Native American Studies at the University
of California, Davis, carefully presents a picture of a different kind of
anthropologist and a different kind of Guatemalan Maya.  For example, he
says "I grew up speaking Popb'al Ti'" (p. 5), just a few pages before
summarizing his education by noting "I graduated from SUNY in the spring of
1989 and moved to the University of Connecticut to work on my doctorate" (p.
11).  This information appears in an autobiographical sketch in the first
chapter to call attention to the fact that the author lived the experiences
he narrates.  Furthermore, the autobiographical content of this book
suggests that the question of who speaks is just as important as what that
speaker takes as his subject matter.

Montejo makes his purposes and his perspective clear in the following
passage.  "I am a Maya, I was a refugee, I lived in exile, and as an
anthropologist I returned to the refugee camps to investigate the situation
of those remaining there.  I have the advantage of a Western education _and_
a Maya upbringing.  I speak two May languages, Popb'al Ti' and Q'anjob'al,
in addition to Spanish and English" (p. 11).  Speaking from his unique
position, Montejo sets for himself a double task.  First, he will
"decolonize this Maya experience of exile" (p. 13).  Second, he will fulfill
his "moral responsibility to make evident to the world the plight of my
people in exile" (p. 13).

Of those two tasks, it is certainly the second that Montejo achieves most
convincingly.  _Voices from Exile_ very clearly and methodically presents
the exile experience, giving special attention to the cultural
transformations caused by exile and to the artistic response to it.  Long
personal narratives by refugees give this study a powerful human connection
and the poetry and songs of other refugees likewise help the reader to see
the Mayan refugees as agents of social change rather than as mere victims.
I was, however, disappointed to find little analysis of the songs, poetry,
or personal narratives.  The presentation of these materials clearly makes
evident the plight of Montejo's compatriots, but it does not in itself
constitute a decolonization of the experience.

Montejo's hesitance to analyze or comment on the material that he cites
suggests to me that there is a fundamental generic uneasiness at work in
this book. _Voices from Exile_ seems stuck somewhere between history and
_testimonio_, caught as much between the presentation of experience and the
academic analysis of it as between Mayan roots and the Western theoretical
models that purport to explain them.  This uncertainty as to the genre of
the book prevents _Voices from Exile_ from becoming a truly compelling piece
of work.  It is, nonetheless, a valuable record of a people in transition.
On this point, Montejo concludes with a statement that summarizes his vision
of exile and Maya identity.  "Our ability to be Mayas is not limited to any
one place or time.  It is not forever rooted in the past.  It can be our
identity and our strength wherever we are." (p. 243).

        Copyright (c) 2000 by H-Net, all rights reserved.  This work may be
        copied for non-profit, educational use if proper credit is given to
        the author and the list.  For other permission, please contact
        H-Books@h-net.msu.edu.

Humanities & Social
Sciences Online

Copyright © 1995-2006 - Contact Us
RSS | Validate: XHTML | CSS