Tecún Umán Character Analysis

In the schools they often celebrate the day of Tecún Umán. Tecún Umán is the Quiché hero who is said to have fought the Spanish and then been killed by them. Well, there is a fiesta each year in the schools. They commemorate the day of Tecún Umán as the national hero of the Quichés. But we don’t celebrate it, primarily because our parents say that this hero is not dead. […] His birthday is commemorated as something which represented the struggle of those times. But for us the struggle still goes on today, and our suffering more than ever. We don’t want it said that all that happened in the past, but that it exists today, and so our parents don’t let us celebrate it. We know this is our reality even though the ladinos tell it as if it were history.

In the schools they often celebrate the day of Tecún Umán. Tecún Umán is the Quiché hero who is said to have fought the Spanish and then been killed by them. Well, there is a fiesta each year in the schools. They commemorate the day of Tecún Umán as the national hero of the Quichés. But we don’t celebrate it, primarily because our parents say that this hero is not dead. […] His birthday is commemorated as something which represented the struggle of those times. But for us the struggle still goes on today, and our suffering more than ever. We don’t want it said that all that happened in the past, but that it exists today, and so our parents don’t let us celebrate it. We know this is our reality even though the ladinos tell it as if it were history.