To celebrate this year's Hispanic Heritage Month, we would like to discuss the impact of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism on Latin America's indigenous cultures. 

Few people are more knowledgeable on this subject than Guatemala's Dr. Rigoberta Menchú Tum. 

She was born into a bloody, 36-year-long civil war that claimed the lives of more than 200,000, mostly indigenous, people. Among them her father, mother and a brother.

Dr. Menchu has dedicated her life to defending the rights of Guatemala's Mayan descendants and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her contribution to the pursuit of social justice and reconciliation, an effort that resulted in the 1996 peace accord that has kept the peace to this day.

She is the first and only indigenous woman to become a Nobel Laureate.

Dr. Menchu spoke to our reporter Lucrecia Franco, via webcam from her hometown of San Pedro Jocopilas, in the Guatemalan department of El Quiché.

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