Chapter 7 examines how General Jorge Ubico, a strong-arm dictator (1931–44), rapidly expanded the state into the countryside and challenged planter sovereignty in the midst of the rise of German National Socialism. Ubico replaced forced wage labor with vagrancy laws and instituted sanitation and militarized rural education programs. Even as he expanded the repressive state apparatus, Ubico also appealed to the masses through direct intervention in local affairs, particularly on behalf of poor women, and by promising access to civilization in the future via sanitation and eugenic programs. Ubico’s efforts at state centralization, however, were countered by the consolidation of regional identities in Alta Verapaz around Tezulutlán, the name given to the region by the Nahua allies of Pedro Alvarado. This anti-imperialist regional identity expressed growing anti-German nationalism. Ladinos and Germans also sought to possess Maya culture as a source of authenticity and timeless tradition as they competed for claims to the region. These new celebrations of Maya authenticity provided a place for Maya patriarchs to reassert their authority as representatives of rural Mayas.