For Maria, now a U.S. citizen, seeing armed men patrolling her street while growing up in her home country of Guatemala was not uncommon. In fact, it was the norm.
It was 1970 and Guatemala was at the height of its infamous civil war. The beautiful “Land of Eternal Spring” was rapidly becoming the land of eternal unrest. Fighting between the left-wing rebels and government forces had begun just ten years earlier, dragging the country into turmoil, with violence haunting rural communities and cities alike.
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