Concepción Ramírez


Concepción Ramírez is a peace activist and from Guatemala and whose portrait appears on the Guatemalan 25 centavo coin - also known as the 'choca'.

Biography

Ramírez was born on 8 March 1942 in Santiagi Atitlan, a town in the Tzanjuyú region. Her father was an evangelical preacher and her mother taught her traditional crafts at home. In 1965 she married Miguel Ángel Reanda Sicay and they went on to have six children.

25 centavo

In 1959, at the age of 17, her portrait was chosen to feature on the 25 centavo coin as a result of a competition to find the 'prettiest indigenous woman' in Guatemala. The portrait was prepared from photographs by the artist Alfredo Gálvez Suárez. People refer to her portrait as the "woman of the choca" and is recognised by people across the country.
Ramírez is a spokesperson for Tz'utujil culture and is passionate about keeping its traditions and language alive. In 2019, the park in Santiagi Atitlan was remodelled to include a monument to her shaped like a 1m choco.
The coin's design features Ramírez wearing a tocoyal head-dress, which is shaped like Lake Atitlan, and made of fabric wound around the head twenty times. Plaza Concepcion in the town was named after her.
In 2018, Ramírez was awarded a pension by the state, as recognition for her life's achievements.

Activism

Guatemala has a violent political past and her family was affected by it: on 7 January 1980, her father was tortured to death with 27 other people; on 22 May 1990 her husband was murdered with three other people in a wave of political violence. In reaction to this, Ramírez has spoken out against political violence and in 2007 she had the honour of laying a white rose, in Palm of Peace at the National Palace of Culture, and in the delivery of a document related to the internal armed conflict.
On March 8, 2016, the General Sub-Directorate for Crime Prevention of the National Civil Police of Santiago Atitlán paid tribute to her on her 74th birthday.

Awards

Municipal Order of the Tzutujil Kingdom

Films of Concepción Ramírez