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Within the first few minutes of class, the professor— a veteran leftist named Matilde Zimmermann, and author of a recent book called Sandinista— said that if the students had never studied Latin American history before, we should do some reading outside of class, because, “We’re not going to be getting that much into the history of Latin America.” Instead, we were going to read half a dozen testimonials written by pitiable women who lived in Latin America. We would then write papers about the ways in which these women are “oppressed” by their “race, gender and class.” In addition to these testimonials, the professor would supply us with essays by leading left-wing thinkers, among them, Marx’s writing partner, Friedrich Engels.

The main texts for the course included a book called Lieutenant Nun: Memoirs of a Basque Transvestite in the New World and, of course, the infamous title: I, Rigoberta Menchu— an autobiographical account of the life of a Guatemalan peasant that was recently proven to be an utter fabrication by David Stoll, an anthropologist who went to Guatemala and discovered that the key events in Menchu’s book are complete lies. Menchu’s screed, however, is still taught in American colleges because it glorifies the Castro-funded Marxist guerrillas who launched a short-lived assault against the Guatemalan government in the 1970s.

There were to be no tests in the course, only papers. Even these were not supposed to include many historical facts, but were designed to be outlets for the students to express our opinions concerning “oppression.” To my chagrin, I did not have the luxury of dropping this course. Doing so would have set me back an extra semester. I decided that I would sharpen my wits, be patient and choose my battles carefully.