Children in Crisis: Maya Identity in Guatemalan Children’s Drawings

Abstract

This article examines the context and content of 15 drawings created in the early 1990s by Guatemalan children who survived government-led systemic violence against their Maya Tz’utujil community. Titled Children in Crisis, all 15 drawings collected by Albert Hurwitz depict similar stories of loss and violence. Considering the relevance of producing research that recognizes stories of marginalized groups, this article engages in making visible the narratives of Maya Tz’utujil children; the events that triggered the stories of violence, loss, and resilience rendered in these drawings; and the functions these drawings served in the aftermath of systemic violence. Created as part of posttraumatic stress therapy, these drawings are, as a close examination suggests, a reaffirmation of Maya identity as an expression of collective resistance.

Notes

¹ Albert Hurwitz was born in 1920 in Westminster, Maryland. Hurwitz completed his bachelor’s degree in art education at George Peabody College for Teachers. He also pursued a master’s degree in theater at Yale School of Drama. After earning his PhD in art education at Penn State, Hurwitz held various important positions, including chair of the Department of Art Education at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Penn State Library holds the Hurwitz collection of children’s drawings and notes from 1940 to 1995. For more information about Hurwitz’s interests in international children’s drawings, visit https://libraries.psu.edu/findingaids/467.htm. Also consult Hurwitz and Carroll (2008).

² Hurwitz’s handwritten note accompanying the 15 drawings states: “Only picture I have ever seen showing the rape of the artist’s sister. A truly horrendous collection.” This bewildered comment was most likely in response to a drawing showing a soldier violating a young woman, while another solder shoots at a farmer. This might explain why Hurwitz titled this collection Children in Crisis.

³ Except for Jorge, children’s names that could by associated with the drawings were not available in Hurwitz’s papers. Some children wrote names of victims (Tomas Rabinal, Baltazar, Nicolas and David Pichardo) and their school grade, but they did not sign their drawings with their own names. Because of that, except for Jorge’s case, I refer to the drawing’s author as a child.

⁴ In early colonial times, the Spaniards called Ladinos natives who spoke Spanish, converted to Christianity, and dressed in Spanish clothing. In Guatemala and adjacent areas, the term evolved to refer to Indian and mixed-race people who assimilated into Spanish culture.

⁵ Several authors have argued that the kind of training provided by the United States to Latin American elite forces at the School of the Americas contributed to the level of violence applied in the fight against the communist threat in Central America. The discourse of zero tolerance inflamed an extremist ideology and dehumanized the opposition (Danner, 1994; Gill, 2004). Strategic kidnapping was one of the techniques the Guatemalan military class learned in the School of the Americas. The forces tortured kidnapped individuals to get information about dissidents and to create fear in the community about siding with the rebels. U.S. intolerance with populist political entities favored radical right-wing forces that alienated more moderate entities from political participation. These entities saw armed revolution as the only alternative to seeking social change (Danner, 1994; Schlesinger & Kinzer, 1982).

⁶ In September 1995, UNICEF held an exhibition of children’s war drawings at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), where Al Hurwitz was director of the Master of Arts in Teaching program. The exhibition was organized by MICA and the Maryland Committee for UNICEF. As director of the graduate program, former president of InSEA, and an avid collector of children’s drawings, Hurwitz would have been a key person in the organization and planning of this exhibition. In fact, there is a copy of the press release for this exhibition in Hurwitz’s papers at Penn State. This suggests that, at the very least, he attended the event. The exhibition featured 80 drawings and stories of child victims of war conflicts and violent events. Drawings by children from Guatemala were exhibited alongside children’s drawings from Bosnia, Rwanda, Thailand, El Salvador, and the United States. Different from other drawings in Hurwitz’s papers, Children in Crisis drawings are not original drawings but color photocopies. It is possible that Hurwitz had asked for digital copies of the Guatemalan children’s drawings that were displayed in that exhibition. According to close friends of his, Hurwitz had the social skills and the drive to do that (Karen Caroll, personal communication, February 24, 2016; Clyde McGeary, personal communication, April 1, 2016). The typed note in the Children in Crisis collection tells the story of Jorge, an 11-year-old boy from Santiago Atitlán. The note says that these drawings were Atitlán children’s reflections on the horrific violence experienced during the Guatemalan Civil War in the 1980s. It also says that Jorge had lost his father 4 years after “our first meeting,” suggesting that whoever collected these drawings met with Jorge more than once. UNICEF’s approach entailed meeting with children on several occasions (Grant, 1994). In addition, it is likely that the Children in Crisis drawings were collected by someone from the United States or by a non-Guatemalan. In the typed note documenting Jorge’s story, the name of the town, Atitlán, is spelled incorrectly as “Atitlar” every time. The word is mentioned three times in the whole text. Somebody from Guatemala or a nearby country would have known how to spell the name of the town. Also, the typed note telling Jorge’s story resembles a gallery label. The title “Guatemala” suggests that Jorge’s story was displayed alongside other featured stories and drawings of children from other countries, as was the case of the MICA-UNICEF 1995 exhibition.

⁷ The report, completed in 1999, implicated both the Guatemalan government and the military in genocide and human rights violations. The report concluded that U.S. financial and military support was a key factor in the violation of human rights of Maya groups in Guatemala. A month after the report was released, in his visit to Guatemala in 1999, President Bill Clinton apologized to the Guatemalan people and described U.S. intervention as a mistake that should not be repeated (CEH, 1999; Martínez Salazar, 2012).

⁸ For access to all Children in Crisis images and other related information, visit http://sites.psu.edu/childrenincrisis.