Myrna Mack Chang
GUATEMALA
(1949–1990) Myrna Mack Chang was born in Barrio San Nicolás, Retalhuleu, in southwestern Guatemala. Her parents were ethnic Chinese. Myrna trained as a teacher, then as a social worker, then as an anthropologist.
Upon completing education at the University of Durham in England, Mack Chang returned to Guatemala in 1982 where she began working as a journalist. Along with colleagues at Inforpress Centroamericana, in 1986 Mack Chang founded the Association for the Advancement of Social Sciences in Guatemala (AVANSCO), a social science center with a mission to research the social, cultural, and political impact of the Guatemalan Civil War and human rights abuses committed by the military government against the marginalized and internally displaced Indigenous Maya communities.
For her advocacy for the Maya community, she was labeled an “internal enemy” by the government. On September 11, 1990, while she was leaving AVANSCO headquarters for her home, she was attacked and stabbed twenty-seven times.
Her sister Helen Mack Chang pursued justice for her sister’s murder, achieving convictions of one assailant and a high-ranking colonel in ground-breaking cases in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
The Guatemalan government acknowledged responsibility in 2004 and has paid compensation to Helen Mack and her family.
Looking for more teaching materials?
Search the Classroom Resource Library to browse resources by grade level, resource type, theme, and country.