The way discrimination plays out with these aspects seems fairly similar to their manifestation at home. People of color are lower on the hierarchy. Which in Guatemala means the indigenous people. The more Spanish blood you inherit, the higher the probability of a better quality of life. Guatemala is the only country remaining in Central America that has a majority indigenous population. Needless to say, they don´t own enough land to grow enough food to support themselves. Land, work, education, health care and opportunity are in short supply for the native people. When you visit Tikal and see the capacity of the Maya to create a complicated society, racism makes no sense. Unless it evolved out of fear, greed and the usual assortment of menacing creatures that often fly around the heads of afflicted people in Goya´s later prints.
The power imbalance between men and women in poverty always seems more extreme than in other classes. This was the same when I taught welfare mothers in Chicago in the 1990s and can be linked to many reasons but the lack of work, education and mobility appear to be determining factors. I am very grateful not to be a poor indigenous woman in Guatemala. I would be subject to sexual abuse by employers or husbands or random men. Then, if I got pregnant and wasn´t married, there is the double-standard (sex OK for men, but women are easy). And most of one´s time would be taken up by child-care, cooking and washing by hand endless dirty clothes and dishes. Not much room for a landscape business!
I am likely showing my colors here as a product of the first world...but that is my perspective, one born of my history and fortunate birth in a fortunate society at the inception of the 20th C military-industrial complex.
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