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 <hunsakes@emporia.edu>,
Division of Foreign Languages, Emporia State University

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).

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