Finca Analysis in I, Rigoberta Menchú

A finca is a large plantation or estate. Rigoberta and her fellow Indigenous peasants work in a variety of fincas on the Guatemalan coast, harvesting coffee, sugar, cotton, cardamom, and other crops. Over the course of Rigoberta’s narrative, the fincas become associated with brutal exploitation, as landowners and overseers frequently abuse or trick their poor Indigenous workers.

Finca Quotes in I, Rigoberta Menchú

The I, Rigoberta Menchú quotes below are all either spoken by Finca or refer to Finca. 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:

I remember going along in the lorry and wanting to set it on fire so that we would be allowed to rest. What bothered me most was travelling on and on and on, wanting to urinate and not being able to because the lorry wouldn’t stop. […] It made me very angry and I used to ask my mother: ‘Why do we go to the finca?”. And my mother used to say: ‘Because we have to. When you’re older you’ll understand why we need to come.’ I did understand, but the thing was I was fed up with it all. When I was older, I didn’t find it strange any more. Slowly I began to see what we had to do and why things were like that. I realised we weren’t alone in our sorrow and suffering, but that a lot of people, in many different regions, shared it with us.

Related Characters: Rigoberta Menchú Tum (speaker), Rigoberta’s Mother (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: 27

Explanation and Analysis:

Watching her made me feel useless and weak because I couldn’t do anything to help her except look after my brother. That’s when my consciousness was born. It’s true. My mother didn’t like the idea of me working, of earning my own money, but I did. I wanted to work, more than anything to help her, both economically and physically. The thing was that my mother was very brave and stood up to everything well, but there were times when one of my brothers or sisters was ill—if it wasn’t one of them it was another—and everything she earned went on medicine for them. This made me very sad as well.

Related Characters: Rigoberta Menchú Tum (speaker), Rigoberta’s Mother

Page Number and Citation: 38

Explanation and Analysis:

I said: ‘Why don’t we burn all this so that people can’t come and work here any more?’ I hated the people who sprayed the crops. I felt they were responsible. ‘Why did they spray poison when people were working there?’ I was very upset when I went back home that time. I was with my neighbours and my older sister because my father had stayed up in the Altiplano. When I got home I told my mother that my friend had died. My mother cried and I said: ‘Mother, I don’t want to live. Why didn’t die when I was little? How can we go on living?’ My mother scolded me and told me not to be silly. But to me it wasn’t silly. They were very serious ideas.

Related Characters: Rigoberta Menchú Tum (speaker), Vicente Menchú, Rigoberta’s Mother, Felipe Menchú Tum , María

Page Number and Citation: 105

Explanation and Analysis:

When I saw the maid bring out the dog’s food – bits of meat, rice, things that the family ate—and they gave me a few beans and hard tortillas, that hurt me very much. The dog had a good meal and I didn’t deserve as good a meal as the dog. Anyway, I ate it, I was used to it. I didn’t mind not having the dog’s food because at home I only ate tortillas with chile or with salt or water. But I felt rejected. I was lower than the animals in the house.

Related Characters: Rigoberta Menchú Tum (speaker), Candelaria, The Landowner’s Wife (The Mistress), María

Related Symbols: Maize, Tortillas, and Tamales

Page Number and Citation: 109

Explanation and Analysis:

Finca Term Timeline in I, Rigoberta Menchú

The timeline below shows where the term Finca appears in I, Rigoberta Menchú. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...him Spanish. At the age of 14, he went to the coast to work on fincas (large plantations). His mother, meanwhile, was coerced into serving as the employer’s mistress. When Rigoberta’s... (full context)

Rigoberta grew up on fincas, such as those where her father worked, where coffee, cotton, cardamom and sugar are cultivated.... (full context)

Spirituality, Nature, and the Sacredness of Life Theme Icon

...in the mountains. Thanks to the little savings they acquired through their work in the fincas, they were able to pay the government a fee to settle there and to clear... (full context)

Ancestors, Tradition, and Community Theme Icon

...work clearing the undergrowth while listening to the birds singing. Rigoberta’s mother worked in a finca for months and returned home less than a month before Rigoberta was born. (full context)

...home in the Altiplano and the remaining eight months down at the coast, working in fincas. Her family would cultivate maize and beans on the Altiplano, but the land wasn’t very... (full context)

After 40 days, the child can accompany his or her family to work in the fincas. Rigoberta explains that Indians are taken to work in enclosed lorries, full of people and... (full context)

On the fincas, recruiting caporales (agents) behave like the landowners that employ them. They speak Spanish and can... (full context)

The cantina (a bar where groceries are also sold) on the finca serves sweets and alcohol, which often leads workers to accumulate debt. Sometimes, when Rigoberta’s father... (full context)

Overseers can kick workers out of the finca without paying them, as once happened to Rigoberta’s family. The overseers are usually ladinos but... (full context)

Language, Education, and Power Theme Icon

...cast a vote on a piece of paper—otherwise, they would be thrown out of the finca and not paid. Rigoberta and all the children were terrified, believing that the soldiers were... (full context)

...their money on medicine. On one occasion, Rigoberta fell ill and nearly died on the finca. After this, she resolved to become tougher and to hide her physical difficulties adjusting to... (full context)

...them from. Working together was also a source of joy, because while they were on fincas, Rigoberta’s father worked away from the family and they did not see him for months... (full context)

...to help support them and do not earn enough money through their work in the fincas. She notes that this did not exist in her Indian community, where strict dress codes... (full context)

Two of Rigoberta’s brothers died on the finca. The eldest, Felipe, died after a plane sprayed the coffee with pesticides, causing him to... (full context)

...told Rigoberta’s mother that she could pay a tax to bury the child on the finca. (full context)

...without getting paid, because of the work they missed. Without the transportation organized by the finca, the family realized that they were completely lost. Out of solidarity, some neighbors lent Rigoberta’s... (full context)

...knowing that she too was bound to watch her children die. That hatred for the finca, she recalls, has stayed with her until the present. Rigoberta describes the tricks that members... (full context)

...family managed to live there for a while without having to go down to the fincas. They ate chile, plants, and tortillas. They grew beans so that Rigoberta’s mother could sell... (full context)

...keep animals from digging them up. While the maize is growing, villagers go to the fincas to work, although some women stay home to look after the plants. Rigoberta emphasizes that... (full context)

...This is a moment of joy, because no one has to go down to the fincas, and everyone can enjoy the food they have reaped. To demonstrate their gratitude, the whole... (full context)

At the age of 14, Rigoberta went down to the finca with her entire family. She worked there with a friend, María, picking cotton. But one... (full context)

...wondered if an alternative to this difficult life exists. She secretly wished to burn the finca down to the ground, to punish the people who sprayed the poison that killed her... (full context)

Deciding to work as a maid for the landowner, Rigoberta followed him out of the finca. Her father said that he didn’t know what might happen to her, but he told... (full context)

...help her father. Having given up her work as a maid, Rigoberta worked in the fincas. This collective support forced the landowners to realize that Rigoberta’s father was not a chief... (full context)

...ideas were clearer than hers, because they never had the experience of being brought to fincas in a lorry. Such difficult experiences leave indelible marks of suffering, capable of changing a... (full context)

...decided to stay up in the mountains, knowing very well that going down to the finca or the market could lead them to be kidnapped. By the same token, the landowners... (full context)

...one of her friends, Petrona Chona, worked with her husband and two children on a finca owned by the García family. The landowner’s son, Carlos García, began trying to convince Petrona... (full context)

...that Petrona had told her, that morning, that her family was going to leave the finca. As she was being murdered, none of the workers nearby interfered when they heard the... (full context)

I, Rigoberta Menchú

Rigoberta Menchu

Finca Term Analysis

Finca Quotes in I, Rigoberta Menchú

Finca Term Timeline in I, Rigoberta Menchú