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The Comité de Unidad Campesina (CUC) is an Indigenous Guatemalan labor organization. Both Rigoberta and her father are members of this organization, which seeks to organize poor Indigenous communities and to educate them about exploitation and oppression. It plays an important role in giving national visibility to peasants’ demands for greater labor rights.
Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC) Quotes in I, Rigoberta Menchú
The I, Rigoberta Menchú quotes below are all either spoken by Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC) or refer to Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC). For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 8
Quotes
They told me I would have many ambitions but I wouldn’t have the opportunity to realize them. They said my life wouldn’t change, it would go on the same—work, poverty, suffering. At the same time, my parents thanked me for the contribution I’d made through my work, for having earned for all of us. Then they told me a bit about being a woman; that I would soon have my period and that was when a woman could start having children. They said that would happen one day, and for that they asked me to become closer to my mother so I could ask her everything.
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Chapter 31
Quotes
A leader must be someone who’s had practical experience. It’s not so much that the hungrier you’ve been, the purer your ideas must be, but you can only have a real consciousness if you’ve really lived this life. I can say that in my organization most of the leaders are Indians. There are also some ladinos and some women in the leadership. But we have to erase the barriers which exist between ethnic groups, between Indians and ladinos, between men and women, between intellectuals and non-intellectuals, and between all the linguistic areas.
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Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC) Term Timeline in I, Rigoberta Menchú
The timeline below shows where the term Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC) appears in I, Rigoberta Menchú. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 15: Conflict with the Landowners and the Creation of the CUC
...system, which oppresses the poor. This led Rigoberta’s father to discuss the creation of the CUC, or the Committee for Peasant Unity (Comité de Unidad Campesina), with other peasants. To avoid...
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Chapter 16: Period of Reflection on the Road to Follow
...she was never afforded a childhood, due to lack of schooling and food. In the CUC’s early stages, the village reflected on the problem of poverty as a consequence of exploitation...
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Rigoberta then decided to join an underground group of peasants associated with the CUC. She traveled around the countryside, gradually gaining clarity on the mechanisms through which the rich...
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Chapter 21: Farewell to the Community: Rigoberta Decides to Learn Spanish
In 1977, Rigoberta’s father joined the CUC, still an underground organization, after leaving prison. He was forced to lead a hidden life....
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...the moment crystallized their commitment to the struggle. Rigoberta soon left to work for the CUC and to organize resistance in different communities.
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Chapter 22: The CUC Comes out into the Open
...the country seemed to pay attention to these poor peasants’ deaths. Now sufficiently organized, the CUC then came out into the open to defend peasants’ rights, fighting for fair wages and...
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In 1979, as part of the CUC, Rigoberta traveled to different areas of the Guatemalan countryside. She soon realized that an important...
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Chapter 23: Political Activity in Other Communities. Contacts with Ladinos
...in over a year, but she learned to find support among the compañeros of the CUC, who became like a family to her. As she stayed in different people’s houses while...
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In the CUC, Rigoberta befriended a ladino teacher who taught her Spanish. She concluded, as she observed his...
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Chapter 25: Rigoberta’s Father Dies in the Occupation of the Spanish Embassy. Peasants March to the Capital
...her father by chance. He praised her in front of all the compañeros of the CUC, asked them to be a father to her if he died, and insisted that his...
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...was among those who died during this event. This violent ending was entirely unexpected: the CUC had believed that the embassy would give the protestors the status of political refugees, allowing...
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Chapter 32: Strike of Agricultural Workers and the First of May in the Capital
...in the Altiplano, many of whom were not organized collectively, to tell them about the CUC. In the meantime, as she taught them how to organize, the army began a heavy...
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Chapter 34: Exile
After the army’s repression calmed down, Rigoberta returned to Guatemala. She decided that the CUC already had enough leaders, so she joined the Vicente Menchú Revolutionary Christians. She considered this...
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