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Welcome reception for Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj

The Duke University Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies welcomes prominent indigenous rights activist Dr. Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj to campus as its Spring 2017 Mellon Visiting Professor.
Velásquez Nimatuj is a journalist, social anthropologist, and international spokeswoman for the respect for indigenous cultures. A member of the K'iche Maya people in Guatemala, she is the first K'iche Maya woman to earn a doctorate degree in social anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin and will teach two anthropology courses at Duke this spring. She is featured in a documentary film, "500 Years" (dir. Pamela Yates), premiering this week at the Sundance Film Festival. The film focuses on the resistance of the indigenous Mayan population and the historic genocide trial against former president Efraín Ríos Montt.