University Communications
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322

Release date: Nov. 9, 1999
Contact: Deb Hammacher, Assistant Director, 404-727-0644, or dhammac@emory.edu

Noted Latin American Community Activists to Speak at Emory

Emory's Latin American and Caribbean Studies program will host noted community activists from Guatemala and Oaxaca, Mexico, who will discuss "Revitalizing Indigenous Culture, Grassroots Development, and the New Millennium: Voices from Rural Latin America" on Tuesday, Nov. 16.

Arcadio Salanic, from Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, and Eucario Angeles Martinez, from Oaxaca, will explore the challenges of grassroots development in the midst of ethnic and civil strife and the effort to revitalize indigenous traditions in an increasingly global culture. The discussion will take place at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 16 in 206 Geosciences (1557 Pierce Dr., Emory). It is free and open to the public, and will take place in Spanish. For more information, call 404-727-7592.

Salanic is a Quiche-speaking Mayan leader who has worked in the area of human rights and linguistic pluralism with the United Nations. He has been associated with the Rigoberta Menchu foundation, and has been active in the last year with efforts to bring indigenous leadership-especially women's leadership-into the national political process. His work with youth in the highlands of Guatemala led to a visit to France in 1997, where he spoke about his work to revitalize Mayan culture in the aftermath of the devastating civil war in Guatemala.

Martinez is a Zapotec cultural agent with a lifelong history of at the grassroots level. As a young man, he became concerned with issues of social justice, worked in Christian base communities, and subsequently became employed by the national Culturas Populares agency in Oaxaca. In his home community, he has developed cooperative stores, computer classes, pig cooperatives and fish-tanks. His work seeks to connect development activities to gender, class and ethnic issues. "For us, we cannot separate economic development from cultural development," says Martinez.

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