Her mother died due to complications related to childbirth, and she would remember this with sorrow throughout her life. As a result of racism and discrimination, members of her family told her as a child not to speak K’iche’ and she was chastised and punished for speaking her language. Still, in her 90s she could remember and say with pride words such as ixim (corn) and lej (tortillas).
At the age of 19, she migrated by herself to Guatemala City, where she found employment as a housekeeper. She would later work as a street vendor, selling atol, tamales and other foods in Parque Concordia. She would walk back and forth for more than 4 km each day with her ollas (pots), since early morning, from her home, located in Zona 5. Clara would work as a vendor until the 1980s.
In 1959, Clara, along with hundreds of landless indigenous peoples, campesinos and workers, occupied a national finca (plantation) located next to the Olympic Stadium. She arrived there with her four young children and nothing but their clothes. Clara remembers that she and her children, like many others, had to build their first homes using cardboard and wood, and would freeze and get wet during the rain and cold. The armed forces were sent to displace them and destroy anything they had. Yet, through struggle, organization and continuous protest, the landless were able to reaffirm their right to life, land and dignity. President Ydígoras Fuentes would agree to allow the new arrivals to stay. Yet, Clara did not receive her land title until 1999. It was there, in La Limonada, where Clara and others founded the 15 de Agosto neighborhood. Many of these settlers either passed with time or left. Clara was one of the last (quite possibly the last) of the original arrivals who still lived in La Limonada.
Clara had seven children. Of these, three would die within their first year of life. Ricardo was her first child, who passed away of leukemia on December 29, 1969. She never forgot Ricardo and mourned him for the rest of her life as if he died yesterday. Her other three children would migrate to the US in the 1970s. When asked once why she migrated to the US, she would answer that she did it because of for her “nietos” (grandchildren). Clara would migrate as an undocumented person in her sixties from Guatemala to Los Angeles a total of three times, all of them on foot. She said that it was the first time she had to take off her clothes from Xela and that she felt “naked” wearing Ladino clothing. Once obtaining US residency, she would travel back to Guatemala every year.
[frasepzp1]
Clara Coyoy Ixcot was mi abuelita (my grandmother) and passed to the next world and breathed her last breath in her home on June 4, 2020, at the age of 98, because of natural causes. She was mourned by the 15 de Agosto community and left her home for the last time on June 6 to be buried next to her son, my tío Ricardo. While mi abuelita left the physical world, she did not die. Instead, she lives through her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Mi abuelita never went to school and did not learn how to read or write, but she is one of the greatest intellectuals, philosophers, historians and scholars you would have the privilege of meeting. She worked hard, was a fighter and sacrificed herself so her family could live a better life than she had. Mi abuelita is my hero, my guide, my example and my motivation to try and live a good life. Her struggle lives through the soul, heart and spirit of my daughter Ixq’anil. After I received the news that my abuelita had passed away, I looked at my daughter as she smiled. Ixq’anil’s smile, her happiness, is one of my abuelita’s greatest act of resistance and legacies, mainly because this system was built to go against her and still she thrived, lived, loved and enjoyed life. Clara is Ixq’anil, and Ixq’anil is Clara.
Next year marks Guatemala’s bicentennial anniversary. The lives of indigenous women like Clara Coyoy Ixcot are the ones that need to be recognized, honored and remembered. Her life was one filled with resiliency, survival, struggle and perseverance. My words cannot capture even a shred of her greatness. I’m grateful for all of her wisdom and the stories that she told me. I’m grateful that she entrusted me with them. I’m thankful to Mother Earth and the ancestors for her life, the life she lived and their guiding her into the afterlife.
Maltiox chawe, Nan!
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Read it also in Spanish.
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