I Ask for Justice: Maya Women, Dictators, and Crime in Guatemala, 18981944 (Louann Atkins Temple Women & Culture)

This study of the Guatemalan legal system during the regimes of two of Latin America's most repressive dictators reveals the surprising extent to which Maya women used the courts to air their grievances and defend their human rights. Winner, Bryce Wood Book Award, Latin American Studies Association, 2015 Given Guatemala's record of human rights abuses, its legal system has often been portrayed as illegitimate and anemic. I Ask for Justice challenges that perception by demonstrating that even though the legal system was not always just, rural Guatemalans considered it a legitimate arbiter of their grievances and an important tool for advancing their agendas. As both a mirror and an instrument of the state, the judicial system simultaneously illuminates the limits of state rule and the state's ability to co-opt Guatemalans by hearing their voices in court. Against the backdrop of two of Latin America's most oppressive regimes—the dictatorships of Manuel Estrada Cabrera (1898–1920) and General Jorge Ubico (1931–1944)—David Carey Jr. explores the ways in which indigenous people, women, and the poor used Guatemala's legal system to manipulate the boundaries between legality and criminality. Using court records that are surprisingly rich in Maya women's voices, he analyzes how bootleggers, cross-dressers, and other litigants crafted their narratives to defend their human rights. Revealing how nuances of power, gender, ethnicity, class, and morality were constructed and contested, this history of crime and criminality demonstrates how Maya men and women attempted to improve their socioeconomic positions and to press for their rights with strategies that ranged from the pursuit of illicit activities to the deployment of the legal system. "Given Guatemala's record of human rights abuses, its legal system has often been portrayed as illegitimate and anemic. I Ask for Justice challenges that perception by demonstrating that even though the legal system was not always just, rural Guatemalans considered it a legitimate arbiter of their grievances and an important tool for advancing their agendas. As both a mirror and an instrument of the state, the judicial system simultaneously illuminates the limits of state rule and the state's ability to co-opt Guatemalans by hearing their voices in court. Against the backdrop of two of Latin America's most oppressive regimes--the dictatorships of Manuel Estrada Cabrera (1898-1920) and General Jorge Ubico (1931-1944)--David Carey Jr. explores the ways in which indigenous people, women, and the poor used Guatemala's legal system to manipulate the boundaries between legality and criminality. Using court records that are surprisingly rich in Maya women's voices, he analyzes how bootleggers, cross-dressers, and other litigants crafted their narratives to defend their human rights. Revealing how nuances of power, gender, ethnicity, class, and morality were constructed and contested, this history of crime and criminality demonstrates how Maya men and women attempted to improve their socioeconomic positions and to press for their rights with strategies that ranged from the pursuit of illicit activities to the deployment of the legal system"--Unedited summary from book jacket Frontmatter List of Illustrations, Maps, and Tables (page ix) Foreword by Pablo Piccato (page xiii) Acknowledgments (page xxiii) Introduction: Justice, Ethnicity, and Gender in Twentieth-Century Guatemala (page 1) 1. Dictators, Indígenas, and the Legal System: Intersections of Race and Crime (page 27) 2. "Rough and Thorny Terrain": Moonshine, Gender, and Ethnicity (page 56) 3. "Productive Activity": Female Vendors and Ladino Authorities in the Market (page 90) 4. Unnatural Mothers and Reproductive Crimes: Infanticide, Abortion, and Cross-Dressing (page 118) 5. Wives in Danger and Dangerous Women: Domestic and Female Violence (page 153) 6. Honorable Subjects: Public Insults, Family Feuds, and State Power (page 191) Conclusion: Emboldened and Constrained (page 225) Appendices (page 240) Notes (page 263) Glossary (page 295) Bibliography (page 299) Index (page 327) Given Guatemala's record of human rights abuses, its legal system has been portrayed as illegitimate and anemic. This book challenges that perception by demonstrating that even though the legal system was not always just, rural Guatemalans considered it a legitimate arbiter of their grievances and an important tool for advancing their agendas.