There is no doubt that many people in the United States who met Rigoberta for the first time in the early 1980s were impressed, moved, and even transfixed by her. She was young, articulate, and intelligent. For those of us who knew Guatemala, the fact that an indigenous woman from a country where Indians had been marginalized and subordinated could connect so well with audiences of people so different from her was extraordinary. Rigoberta left lasting impressions on cynical journalists and television interviewers as well.

Powerful as Rigoberta's book and, even more, her persona were in reaching uninitiated audiences, heads of state, and international diplomats, however, I, Rigoberta Menchu was hardly the human rights and solidarity movement's "little red book," and Rigoberta was never its leader. If it turns out to be true that scholars were not skeptical enough about Rigoberta's representations of her particular family and...