An activist for the rights of Indigenous peoples, Menchú grew up in a Quiché Maya community in Guatemala, working long hours on coffee and cotton plantations alongside her family from a young age. During Guatemala’s decades-long civil war, her brother, father, and mother were all killed by the military, targeted for their activism on behalf of Indigenous rights. Menchú fled to Mexico in 1981, where she began traveling the world to speak out against the injustices facing Indigenous Guatemalans. In 1992, at 33, she won the Nobel Peace Prize, and she has since founded an organization advocating for the rights of Indigenous people, women, children, and refugees.