Some of the problems faced in the Mayan society today are the revolts that keep happening to push out their culture. In December of '97 45 unarmed women and children were gunned down by a group of people from the Acteal village. Also in the 80's the Mayans of Guatemala were in the middle of a feud between the government and leftist guerrillas. The guerrillas demanded certain supplies and shelter from them which in return a massive amount of Mayans found themselves murdered. These acts of violence just go to show how disrespected and taken advantage these peoples are and shows more racism that is still alive today. Some Mayan men are unwilling to wear the traditional weaving that are so much a part of their culture because they are afraid of showing their Mayan heritage.
Another problem faced by the Mayan culture is the lack of communication to outsiders, particularly with people they do business with. A representative from a company that buys coffee from them talks of how difficult it is to do business with them because they have no telephones. The telephone companies refuse to build there because of its once being a place of conflict.
These problems faced by the Mayans today just goes to show how the treatment of natives is unruly and unjust. It is very sad to me to hear about this in modern society, and I can only hope that Mayan life can get better at some point. I guess people will continue to think that taking advantage of smaller populations is okay. This is very baffling to me being from such a large mixed cultural country. We still face our own problems in this country, but on a smaller scale and not so devastating as to just demand things from smaller subcultures by threatening them with such brutal force.
