Deconstructing Myths and Male Influence in ‘Fruit of the Drunken Tree’

When I was a child growing up in Guatemala during the Civil War, my mom took me to play at my friend’s house late one night. She told me not to ask any questions. “Just play,” she said. While our mothers sat downstairs talking in hushed voices, my friend took me into his closet to tell me quietly that armed men had surrounded their car earlier that day, threatening kidnapping or worse if they did not pay. We sat in the dark closet, crying, shooting our toy guns at nothing and everything, afraid and angry. My friend’s family fled the country. Some time later, men dressed in army fatigues kidnapped a cousin in our family for ransom. They returned him without physical harm, but not without emotional damage—his wife passed away not long after and our cousin hired security personnel. You could never be sure whether these were