Guatemala through it’s people
LUIS VON AHN
Born August, 18th, 1978 in Guatemala City, Guatemala
Luis von Ahn is the co-founder and CEO of award-winning language-learning platform Duolingo. He also founded the company reCAPTCHA, which was later sold to Google in 2009. He is the founder and president of the Luis von Ahn Foundation, which is “committed to a future where all Guatemalans are equally valued, can thrive and are able to fully exercise their human rights.”
RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ TUM
Born January 9th, 1959 in Laj Chimel, Quiché, Guatemala
Rogberta Menchú Tum is a K’iche’ human rights activist, indigenous rights activist, and feminist. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, and was the first indigtenous person to do so. Her life is recorded in the book, I, Rigoberta Menchú (1983), in which a series of interviews were compiled by Venezuelan anthropologist Elisabeth Burgos-Debray.
SANDRA MORÁN
Born April 29th, 1960 in Guatemala City, Guatemala
Sandra Morán is Guatemala’s first openly lesbian Congresswoman. According to UN Women, Morán organized the country’s first lesbian group in 1995 and is well-known for her activism and vocal support for women’s rights, indigenous women’s rights and LGBT rights in Guatemala. She founded the Congresswoman Forum in 2016; a space for women in Congress to share knowledge and rotect each other. She talks more about her journey in this article.
ALDO DÁVILA
Born September 20th, 1977 in Guatemala City, Guatemala
Aldo Dávila is the first gay man and only HIV positive Congressman in Guatemala, committed “to ensure that human rights of all people are not violated.” In a conversations with the Global Equality Caucus, he talks of his fights against government corruption, his life as a legislator, and his belief that “a more inclusive, more affective, more loving and much more tolerant Latin America is possible.”
GABY GYGY CASTILLO
Born in the 1980s in Guatemala
Gaby Gygy Castillo is a producer and director of inclusive films in Guatemala. She is the director of ODASA (Organización de la Diversidad Sexual Amigos Siempre Amigos), an organization that works to visualize the diverse LGBTQ+ community in Guatemala through audiovisual productions. As a trans woman, Castillo has fought through many obstacles, but that only inspired her to work to make a better future for others in the community.
MIGUEL ÁNGEL ASTURIAS ROSALES
Born October 19th, 1899 in Guatemala City, Guatemala
Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales was a Guatemalan writer, journalist, playwright, and poet-diplomat who won the literature Nobel Prize in 1967. He is the author of El Señor Presidente, which explores an insensitive dictator and his affect on his people. Asturias has long criticized corruption in the world and has brought attention to indigenous cultures and their importance.
LORENA CABNAL & ALEX VÁSQUEZ
Guatemala
Lorena Cabnal and Alex Vásquez are ancestral healers and members of Tzk’at, the Land-Based Community Feminism Network of Ancestral Healers. According to PBI, Tzk’at is comprised of more than a dozen indigenous Xinkas and Mayan peoples who have struggled with multiple types of violence that impact indigenous women. In a discussion with Lorena, Alex, and Entremundos collaborator Patricia Macías, they talk about how Tzk’at was “born of a loving agreement between its members to support each other in the face of the different forms of violence that impact the bodies and lives of indigenous women: femicide, sexual abuse, or extractivism and land-based violence.” Here is a brief documentary on the network. (Video contains brief nudity. LCC does not affiliate with any political party of Guatemala)
RICARDO ARJONA
Born January 19th, 1964 in Jocotenango, Guatemala
Ricardo Arjona is a singer-songwriter with more than 80 million records sold worldwide. The musician has “established a global reputation for his often poignant and always topical songwriting, which addresses subjects ranging form romance and sexuality to violence, racism, poverty, and the plight of immigrants” (John Bush). Listen to his album “Blanco y Negro” here.
GLENDA JOANNA WETHERBORN
Born 1984 in Guatemala
Joanna Wetherborn is a Guatemalan, Afro-descendant journalist, social communicator, academic, and popular educator attached to black feminism, specialized in gender, human rights, and intersectionality approaches. A former UN Volunteer and Expert on Gender and Human Rights, Wetherborn is dedicated to tackling inclusion and discrimination. She now works as a Sexual and Gender Based Violence Expert at Fós Feminista, an international organization which advocates for sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice.
SANDRA XINICO BATZ
Born 1986 in Patzún, Guatemala
Sandra Xinico Batz is a Kaqchikuel primary school teacher, activist, anthropologist, and opinion columnist. She writes about Mayan women, the textiles they wear, and her own experiences with discrimination as an indigenous woman. As part of the Weavers’ Councils National Movement (Ruchajixik ri qana’ojb’äl), she is part of the ongoing fight to guarantee the right of collective intellectual property of the textiles and clothing from indigenous peoples.
CARLOS MÉRIDA
Born December 2nd, 1981 in Guatemala City, Guatemala
Carlos Mérida was a Modernist abstract painter with Spanish and K’iche’ Maya heritage. He integrated Latin American culture with 20th-century European painting. Mérida studied painting in Paris between 1908-1914 where he met Picasso, Modiagliani, and others. His work has been shown in museums internationally, including the MoMA, and he has an entire museum dedicated to his work in Zone 13 of Guatemala City, Museo Nacional Arte Moderno Carlos Mérida.
SARA CURRUCHICH CÚMEZ
Born July 25th, 1993 in San Juan Comalapa, Guatemala
Sara Curruchich Cúmez is a Guatemalan singer-songwriter of Kaqchikel descent. She sings in both Spanish and Kaqchikel language. Cúmez is an activist in defense of women’s and indigenous people’s rights. Listen to her song, JUNAM, a song dedicated to the happiness and complicatedness of our freedoms and races. Or her song, LA SIGUANABA, which features the use of the marimba- Guatemala’s national instrument.
MARÍA MERCES COROY
Born September 3rd, 1994 in Santa María de Jesús, Guatemala
María Merces Coroy is an actress best known for her roles in Ixcanul, La Llorona, Bel Canto, Malinche, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. She began acting at 25 with no prior acting experience after she was found by Guatemalan filmmaker Jayro Bustamante for his film Ixcanul. Coroy said in a past interview that even though it was her dream to appear on the big screen, she was fearful of being the main star as “often, Indigenous women are discriminated against and undervalued and we are told that we cannot fulfill our dreams.” She tried to take a secondary role in the film, but Bustamante convinced her to continue in the main role, and she’s only found more success since. The film has a message of anti-machismo and anti-racism, and Coroy has a similar message to share in another interview: “I believe that we should’t be machistas and we shouldn’t be racist: we are only one. The world is one. Latin America is one. The country is one.”
GABY MORENO
Born December 16th, 1981 in Guatemala City, Guatemala
Gaby Moreno is a singer-songwriter, producer, Grammy nomineed, and Latin Grammy winner. She sings in English and Spanish, and has composing and voiceover credits in many productions. Moreno is the First UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador from Guatemala. Listen to her song “Quizás, Quizás, Quizás” she plays live at the Kennedy Center.
THELMA CABRERA PÉREZ DE SÁNCHEZ
Born September 21st, 1970 in El Asintal, Guatemala
Thelma Cabrera is “a defender of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and of Mother Earth, I was elected by an assembly of communities to be a candidate for president,” as stated in this article by Rossy Gonzalez. She comes from a family of Mam campesinos, or farmworkers. Cabrera was running to be a presidential candidate with support from the Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples in the June 2023 election, but was ultimately barred from registering which caused protests nationwide. (LCC does not affiliate with any political party of Guatemala)