Early Activities of Yax Te'
In Summer 1995, 2000 copies of Sahil ch'oolej salii hoonal (Momentos alegres) and Leyendas q'eqchi'es de El Estor, Izabal were donated to the Escuela Maya "San Pedro" in El Estor, whose teachers had compiled the stories.
In 1996, Gaspar Pedro González and Fernando Peñalosa traveled to the villages of San Pedro Soloma, Santa Eulalia, and San Miguel Acatán in the Guatemalan Department of Huehuetenango to donate some 700 newly published books in Q'anjob'al and Spanish to schools, churches, and Maya organizations there.
On August 11, 1997, Yax Te' organized a conference to celebrate the repatriation of Oliver La Farge's famous work, The Year Bearer's People, in a translation into Spanish by Víctor Montejo and Oscar Veláquez Estrada. This early 20th century work is a rarely available study of the Popti'-speaking community in Jacaltenango, Huehuetenango.
Also, IXIM (Integración de Indígenas Mayas), an organization of immigrant Mayas in Los Angeles, received books of folktales for use at their Christmas party for Maya children, and books were donated to Pastoral Maya at the parish church in Indiantown, FL, another community of mostly Q'anjob'al-speaking immigrants.
In January 2001, Gaspar Pedro González, Yax Te's bestselling author, and former Director General of Art and Culture of the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Guatemala, traveled to Jacaltenango to celebrate the publication of Raíces de esperanza, a book of poetry in Spanish and Popti' by local poet Santos Alfredo García Domingo. Copies of this and other titles were donated to schools and Mayan organizations in the area.
In March 2002, Dr. Peñalosa again traveled to Guatemala. With Laura Martin and Nadine Grimm, he visited San Pedro la Laguna near Lake Atitlán for the first time. He distributed books to libraries, schools, offices of the Academy of Mayan Languages of Guatemala, and other organizations in the area. Yax Te' books are a common sight in the major bookstores and other shops in Guatemala City and Antigua Guatemala, where tourists and locals alike depend on their availability.
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Yax Te' Books • Department of Spanish and Portuguese • Anderson Hall • Temple University • 1114 West Berks Street • Philadelphia, PA 19122
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