Villagers of San Pedro?
Around the beginning of the film, the Guatemalan army rounded up the villagers and took them away. What happened to them. Were they shot or relocated to work in some labor camp somewhere?
shareDuring the Guatemalan Civil War, any peasant or indigenous Maya who showed any sign of rebellion (like the ones meeting at the village hacienda) were killed.
I doubt that the villagers were kept around to work. Also, when Rosa was convincing Enrique to take her with him to the North, she said that man or woman, they are equally killed when captured by the military.
Dear Ndugu, how are you? I am fine.
I lived a year in Guatemala, teaching English, back in 1999. The Civil War was over then, but people told me of mass killings like this in Kiche Mayan villages (I lived in Quetzaltenango, the major city amidst these areas). People shoved into barns and burned alive, or just shot en masse.
The soldier who told the driver of the truck loaded with the captured Mayan civilians including Rosa's mother, to "haul this *beep* away"? You know that came to no good end.
"Indios" are still an underclass looked down upon by many "whiter" (more Spanish-rooted) Guatemalans--I saw graffiti like "Afuera Indios shucos" ("go away, filthy Indians") scrawled on walls in their neighborhoods. I was even chided openly by someone for being interested in a certain woman of Mayan heritage, and she clearly scoffed because of her heritage, openly saying so (the woman in question was one of the few Mayans in the "middle class" in the country, a young well-educated attorney). She couldn't understand my incredulity either. The racism was still fairly open there.
"No more half-measures."