Memory, Reconciling Genocide, and other post-Cold War Realities in Guatemala.
Dr. Andy Hernández
Wednesday, July 09, 2025 | 03:30 pm - 04:30 pm
Max Salazar Building (MS 408) at CNM
900 University Blvd SE
About:
Home to Mayans and other Indigenous groups for thousands of years, Guatemala was claimed by conquistadores in the sixteenth century. The Spanish colonial period gave way to independence, which in turn gave way to increasing U.S. business and strategic interests in the 20th century. An early site for covert intervention, U.S. officials cultivated various right-wing governments during the Cold War, particularly after Nicaragua’s Sandinista Revolution. Increasingly repressive governments intensified violence in rural Guatemala throughout the 1980s ultimately carrying out a genocide against Mayans. Political leaders in the late 20th- and early 21st centuries have diverged significantly in remembering and reconciling these events, in leading the nation through recovery from the devastation of anti-guerilla campaigns in the late Cold War period, and in navigating ongoing U.S. interests in the region.
Notes:
This event is free and open to the public.
