Rigoberta Menchú (born 1959) was a Guatemalan human rights activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992. Despite her youth she became an eloquent spokesperson for the rights of the indigenous peoples of the entire Western Hemisphere.

Rigoberta Menchú was born on January 9, 1959, in Chimel, a village in the Quiché province in the northwest highlands of Guatemala. Her mother, whose surname was Tum, was a midwife and traditional healer, and her father, Vicente, was a day laborer, catechist, and community leader. Both her parents belonged to one of the many indigenous groups of Guatemala, the Quiché Maya, and spoke little Spanish. Young Menchú herself spoke only Quiché (one of over twenty different languages spoken in her country) until she was 19.

Her difficult childhood is an example of how hundreds of thousands of Indian children grow up in Guatemala. Every year she followed her...