Books: Paradise in Ashes

Here is a response paper I wrote for one of my classes. The book I'm writing about is called "Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror, and Hope". The book is a about the Guatemalan genocide, and focuses on the experience of Santa María Tzejá.

The campesino’s need for land is what stuck with me in the reading. I thought about identity and (once again) drew connections with struggles happening in my hometown. The need for land, in my mind, is a fundamental part of the individual’s humanity. In terms of the reading, the campesinos in Guatemala are dehumanized beyond belief. They are treated as beasts of burden, as tools. They are in this place because they lack land to support themselves, raise a family, to have a community, to live a dignified life as human beings. Having land gains them what has been denied them and their ancestors for thousands of years. The settlers have a small scrap of land that belongs to them, that they call home. They’ve worked for it, the products of their labor belong to them.

I see a similar struggle in my hometown of Point Reyes. The town has a big agricultural and tourist economy. The base of the labor force on the ranches and farms is made of displaced campesinos primarily from Jalostitlan in Mexico. Many of the workers were originally farmers and had land in Mexico. Thanks to the invisible hand, they’ve lost their land and livelihood and been forced to seek it the U.S. in places like Point Reyes. The work the land, but don’t own it. They live in cramped trailers, some lacking basic utilities like hot water. Although they work in the production of food, many have to take food from the community pantry. They are dehumanized by the way our government's laws and economic system has treated them

Based on my experiences living and volunteering in the community, I’ve seen that these workers want their own farms and ranches. This is denied them not through state violence as in Guatemala, but through economic and political means. Many are undocumented, and live in terror of being ripped from their families simply because they lack papers. Land itself in the town is expensive, as many plots in the town have been purchase by wealthy “weekenders.”

The Guatemalan and Point Reyes campesinos live in different places and face vastly different challenges. However, they both have the same need for land, for recognition and dignity as human beings.