Our Culture Is Our Resistance: Repression, Refuge, and Healing in Guatemala

For the past ten years Jonathan Moller has photographed communities uprooted by war in Guatemala. The result is Our Culture Is Our Resistance, a collection of portraits taken during that decade, revealing stories of life and death, of hope and despair, and of struggles for survival, respect, and truth. The beauty and strength of Moller’s photographs and the accompanying texts not only document and preserve the faces and events associated with this land and its history, but also display for the viewer the humanity and dignity of these largely Mayan indigenous peoples.

Featuring one hundred forty-seven tritone portraits, Our Culture Is Our Resistance also includes a preface by Guatemalan Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum; short essays by Francisco Goldman, Susanne Jonas, and Ricardo Falla; and prose and poetry by Eduardo Galeano, Julia Esquivel, Francisco Morales Santos, Humberto Ak’abal, and Heather Dean. In addition, the book includes testimonies and reflections by Guatemalan community members and survivors, as well as statements by photographer Sebastião Salgado, Eduardo Galeano, and William F. Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International U.S.A.

Among the sponsors and official endorsers of Our Culture Is Our Resistance are Amnesty International, the Soros Foundation, Global Exchange, The Nation Institute, the Photo Review, Witness for Peace, and Cultural Survival.

In addition to Moller images, Our Culture is Our resistance features: a preface by Rigoberta Menchú Tum; essays by Ricardo Falla, Eduardo Galeano, and Francisco Morales Santos; and, statements by Eduardo Galeano, Sebastiấo Salgado, and William F. Shultz.