Flipping the Tortillera: Sandra Monterroso’s Hybrid Iconography in Tus tortillas mi amor

For centuries, indigenous Guatemalan women have performed daily rituals to feed their families. These enduring practices have turned women into iconic figures, sustaining culture through ritual such as the making of tortillas. Such practices serve one's own family, and, in turn, feed the powerful, national "culture of service," as theorized by Manuela Camus. Camus proposes that Guatemalan women's culture of service is a symptom of their domination by men: "women nowadays seem to reproduce even more traditional roles than what one would expect as mothers, wives, friends, and prostitutes: they are always on service, on call." This culture of service fuels violence against women and girls, and is one reason women are not advancing in Guatemala.