FOR LAURA GONZALEZ, ACTIVISM BEGINS WITH ANCESTRAL MEMORY Story by Paige Miltenberger LAURA GONZALEZ SAYS her organizing work did not begin with a protest or a campaign. It began at the family table. “I truly believe it is in my ancestral memory,” Gonzalez said. Growing up, Gonzalez heard her mother often repeat a phrase that roughly translates to, “Where four can eat, seven can eat.” Gonzalez said it was less a saying than a rule for living in community. Community meant sharing, and survival meant looking out for one another. Gonzalez is an Indigenous activist in Boulder and a woman of Mayan descent from Abya Yala, the Indigenous name for the Americas. She said her work is shaped by the history of her ancestors, many of whom survived genocide, land theft, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. “None of that ended,” she said. “Which is why I have to fight.” Gonzalez said historians estimate that about 95% of Indigenous people in Abya Yala were killed during colonization. “That means 5% were left,” she said. “So the fact that I’m existing, that I’m sitting at this table right now, surviving in such a brutal society – that itself is resistance. I was meant to be erased.” LEARNING FROM THE PAST Gonzalez was born in Texas and raised in Tabasco, Mexico. When she was 12, her family moved back to Texas, an experience she said shaped her identity as a “displaced urban Indigenous person.” Her parents raised her to be proud of her Mayan roots. As a child, she visited major Mayan sites like Palenque and Tikal. Later, she reconnected with her ancestry through relationships with the Dakota and Nakota communities. Using oral histories, family records, and traditional clothing patterns, she traced her lineage to Mopan Maya communities. Gonzalez said ancestral knowledge is central to how she understands justice and survival. She often points to anthropology and archaeology as proof that organized, thriving societies existed long before modern political and economic systems. “This current brutal, racial capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal, colonial, and imperialist system is just 500 years Laura Gonzalez wearing a huipil — an embroidered blouse from San Antonio Palopó in Guatemala’s Sololá department — and a purple kufiya on top. Photo by Paige Miltenberger. 6 COMMUNITY PROFILE
7 Publizr Home