Dra. Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj

Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj, Maya-K’iche’, is a journalist, activist, and a Stanford University visiting professor from Guatemala. Dr. Nimatuj is an international spokeswoman for Indigenous communities in Central America and was the first Maya-K’iche’ woman to earn a doctorate in social anthropology in Guatemala.

Dr. Velásquez Nimatuj was also instrumental in making racial discrimination illegal in Guatemala and is featured in 500 Years, a documentary about Indigenous resistance movements, for her role as an activist and expert witness in war crime trials.

Dr. Nimatuj writes a weekly newspaper column for El Periódico de Guatemala and has served on UN Women as a representative for Latin America and the Caribbean. Before coming to Stanford, she was a visiting professor at Brown, Duke, and the University of Texas at Austin.

She is part of a long line of struggle and resistance in her community since the Spanish invasion in 1524.

She is the author of the books:

• La pequeña Burguesía Comercial de Guatemala:  desigualdades de clase, raza y género (2003)

• Pueblos indígenas, Estado y lucha por tierra en Guatemala: Estrategias de sobrevivencia y negociación ante la desigualdad globalizada (2008)

• Lunas y Calendarios, colección poesía guatemalteca (2018)

• La Justicia nunca estuvo de nuestro lado, Peritaje cultural sobre conflicto armado y violencia sexual en el caso Sepur Zarco,  Guatemala (2019).