Myrna Manzanares

Manzanares had two children, a daughter, Shalini, and a son, Robert. She was admitted to Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital on 15 December 2021 with a suspected stroke and died several days later on 21 December at the age of 75.

In 2018, she was named one of the first-ever Artists Emeritus by Belize's National Institute of Culture and History.

Her other published works include Tell Me a Story (folklore); Life Lines (poetry); Traditional Games of Belize (compiled for UNICEF); Faith-Based Response to HIV and AIDS; and Healing Circle, a 2017 poetry collection in collaboration with teenager Azizi Hoy.

In 2008, she was honoured as a Member of the Order of the British Empire "for services to education, culture and social development." The same year, she was honored in Belize's Outstanding Women Awards.

Her cultural activism included extensive oral history work. Manzanares also fought for women's rights and sexual and reproductive health, as well as for substance abuse prevention and against HIV/AIDS, serving as chair of the National AIDS Task Force and president of the Addiction Alert Rehabilitation Center. She was also involved with the Belize History Association and the Belize National Library Service Board, and she was politically involved in the United Democratic Party, including an unsuccessful run for the Belize City Council in 1999.

In 1995, she co-founded the National Kriol Council, which aims to promote the culture and language of Belizean Creole people. She was also a longtime president of the institution.

Manzanares returned to Belize in 1986 and became involved in community organizing there, including through the now-defunct PRIDE Belize.

She moved to the U.S. state of California in 1965 to join family who had already left after Hurricane Hattie. She obtained a degree in psychology at Pepperdine University, as well as taking English as a second language classes at the University of Southern California. She completed postgraduate studies in psychology at California State University, Long Beach.

Myrna Kaye Manzanares MBE (30 October 1946 – 21 December 2021) was a Belizean writer and activist, considered an ambassador of Belizean Creole culture. She worked to preserve this culture, particularly the Creole language, and advocated for racial justice both in Belize and among its diaspora.

Myrna Manzanares was born in Gales Point, a small village in Belize District, British Honduras, on 30 October 1946. Her mother was the town's craft instructress. At age 8, she left her home village to attend St. John’s Anglican Primary School in Belize City.