Maya people have lived for thousands of years in the mountains and forests of Guatemala, but they lost control of their land, becoming serfs and refugees, when the Spanish invaded in the sixteenth century. Under the Spanish and the Guatemalan non-Indian elites, they suffered enforced poverty as a resident source of cheap labor for non-Maya projects, particularly agriculture production. Following the CIA-induced coup that toppled Guatemala's elected government in 1954, their misery was exacerbated by government accommodation to United States "interests," which promoted crops for export and reinforced the need for cheap and passive labor. This widespread poverty was endemic throughout northwestern Guatemala, where 80 percent of Maya children were chronically malnourished, and forced wide-scale migration to the Pacific coast. The self-help aid that flowed into the area in the 1960s and 1970s raised hopes for justice and equity that were brutally suppressed by Guatemala's military government. This military reprisal led to a massive diaspora of Maya throughout Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Central America. This collection describes that process and the results. The chapters show the dangers and problems of the migratory/refugee process and the range of creative cultural adaptations that the Maya have developed. It provides the first comparative view of the formation and transformation of this new and expanding transnational population, presented from the standpoint of the migrants themselves as well as from a societal and international perspective. Together, the chapters furnish ethnographically grounded perspectives on the dynamic implications of uprooting and resettlement, social and psychological adjustment, long-term prospects for continued links to migration history from Guatemala, and the development of a sense of co-ethnicity with other indigenous people of Maya descent. As the Maya struggle to find their place in a more global society, their stories of quiet courage epitomize those of many other ethnic groups, migrants, and refugees today.

This book analyzes the lives and the continuing ritual traditions of the Mayas who live in the United States. Focusing on a predominantly Maya town in rural Florida, it shows how members of this ancient Central American civilization use their religious tradition to maintain their ethnic identity in an unfamiliar environment. Bringing together studies of Mesoamerican fiesta or cargo systems, religious ritual and migration studies, this interdisciplinary work describes the religious traditions of indigenous Guatemala, the crisis migration of the 1980s, and the Mayas' daily life in the United States, including Maya women's reflections on their new challenges. The book is unique in its focus on the transfer of the fiesta cycle to the diaspora and its analysis of the behind-the-scenes aspects of ritual. The rise of leadership, contested interpretations of ethnic identity, choices about symbolic representation, and maintenance of ties to villages of origin all take place in the context of organizing public ritual events. Through these strategies, the Maya people not only cope materially and spiritually with the chaotic experience of uprootedness, but find ways to strengthen their unique identity. Bibliography. Index.

How Maya refugees found new lives in strange lands.

"Changes the conversation about Cuban archaeology as a whole, presenting groundbreaking data and interpretations that will be useful for prehistoric and historical archaeologists working the region."--Samuel M. Wilson, author of The Archaeology of the Caribbean "Presents a collection of essays that will tremendously facilitate the linkage of issues in Cuban archaeology with the rest of the Caribbean and surrounding areas."--Peter E. Siegel, coeditor of Protecting Heritage in the Caribbean As the largest--and most centrally located--island of the Caribbean, Cuba has seen successive waves of migration to its shores. Its early colonization, and that of the Greater Antilles, is complicated by population movements within the Circum-Caribbean. In this volume, Ivan Roksandic and an international team of researchers present a new theory of mainland migration into the Caribbean. Through analysis of early agriculture, burial customs, dental modification, pottery production, and dietary patterns, the contributors enable a very close look at the lifeways and challenges of the native populations. They decipher patterns of movement between the islands and present-day Mexico and Central America and explore the interactions between the islands’ inhabitants, including the fate of indigenous groups after European contact. Together the essays produce a view of the early Caribbean that is rich with dynamic networks of exchange and matrixes of cultural influences, more intricate and multilinear than previously believed. With contributions from archaeology, physical anthropology, environmental archaeology, paleobotany, linguistics, and ethnohistory, this volume adds to ongoing debates concerning migration and colonization. It examines the importance of landscape and seascape in shaping human experience; the role that contact and interaction between different groups play in building identity; and the contribution of native groups to the biological and cultural identity of postcontact and modern societies. Ivan Roksandic, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Linguistics Program at the University of Winnipeg, is the author of The Ouroboros Seizes Its Tale: Strategies of Mythopoeia in Narrative Fiction. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

The present ethnographic research examines a diverse group of migrants from the Macro- Maya culture, originally from Yucatan, Chiapas and Guatemala. Findings confirm that there is a longstanding migration pattern in which the Maya have engaged in order to survive, and, now, the Maya have extended these roads of survival to the California Bay Area in the United States. This research aims to address the cultural, political and social migration conditions Maya from Guatemala and Mexico have face both historically and at present. The research questions that guide this research are: How have Maya from Guatemala, Chiapas and Yucatan experienced their migration trajectory northward and what are the social and economic factors that propel these movements? What are the similarities and differences in the migration experiences of my participants? How do these migration experiences support or undermine the representations of Maya that circulate in various American discourses?I argue that the Maya migrations to the United States have been instigated by the atrocities committed against Maya in Guatemala, Yucatan and Chiapas and the economic marginalization each group has each faced create a movement toward a specific type of refugee or economic exile-- a refugee that utilizes movement as a form of resistance and survival. Furthermore, my data leads to the claim that these migrations must be understood as a diaspora. Establishing economic niches and "hidden" communities in the United States, the experiences of the Maya who share their stories in this research illuminate the differences and similarities among the Maya coming from Mexico and Guatemala. Through my participants' stories, I argue that there is no monolithic "Maya" or "migrant" and, rather, I put forth an analysis of the "unlikely Maya". My participants share a diversity of experiences that undermines the discourses that perpetuate stereotypes permeating monolithic representations of the Maya. The ethnography includes two levels of observation. In the micro level observations I examine the alternatives lifestyles available and desired by the participants and their trajectories and historical background. The macro level observations include an analysis of the localized struggles of the Maya migrants in relation to wider societal phenomena. More specifically, in the macro analysis their stories are contextualized in the political environment, the broader immigrant struggles and in dialogue with various discourses, such as mass media, labor and government. The Maya participants in this research are undocumented workers. In order to survive in the U.S., they need to harvest a lifestyle that ensures anonymity. Contrary to the discourse on immigration that pins migrants as the "poor rural Maya", the "uneducated non-English speaker or non-Spanish- speaker", or the "victims of history", my qualitative data shows the strong presence of a counterculture migrant community hidden from mainstream representation. The unlikely Maya is not a group of rural individuals who are defenseless against a hegemonic order, but, rather, they are rebels of a system and survivors of social and political forces. I contend that their migration can be understood not only as a result of a survival strategy but, rather, their "illegal" intrusion in to the U.S. is as a form of resistance

Explores the experiences of Senegalese in Paris, Rome, and New York as they make sense of who they are and how they fit into their local communities, the countries where they live, and the larger global Senegalese diaspora. They shape their identities through the creative ways they use multiple languages.

Elilal, exile, is the condition of thousands of Mayas who have fled their homelands in Guatemala to escape repression and even death at the hands of their government. In this book, Victor Montejo, who is both a Maya expatriate and an anthropologist, gives voice to those who until now have struggled in silence--but who nevertheless have found ways to reaffirm and celebrate their Mayaness. Voices from Exile is the authentic story of one group of Mayas from the Kuchumatan highlands who fled into Mexico and sought refuge there. Montejo's combination of autobiography, history, political analysis, and testimonial narrative offers a profound exploration of state terror and its inescapable human cost.