Influential Work: Peasant Unity Committee

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In 1979, Rigoberta joined the Peasant Unity Committee as her first step towards activism. At this point she taught herself Spanish and was asked to organize all twenty-two of the Indian groups against exploitation. In 1980, a strike took place for the betterment of farm worker's conditions and she played a prominent role in that. 1981 rolled around and she was an important figure in a demonstration for the Indigenous people in the capital city of Guatemala right before she was forced into exile.


As she then fled all around the world, she began corresponding with the United Nations to try to spread her mission. She became particularly active in the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations.