Latina/o Studies Commons^™

Fortalecimiento De La Gobernanza Hídrica Comunitaria En El Destino Ecoturístico Maya Ka’An, Quintana Roo, México, Nori Velázquez Juárez, Liliana García Ramírez, Gonzalo Merediz Alonso, Eduardo Arturo Tapia Lemus

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

En 2014, Maya Ka’an surgió como un nuevo destino turístico de Quintana Roo. Impulsado por la Asociación Civil Amigos de Sian Ka’an, plantea y desarrolla acciones bajo un enfoque de desarrollo sustentable, diferenciado al crecimiento de la región norte de Quintana Roo, México. Su actuación parte desde la base comunitaria en los municipios del centro del estado (Tulum, Felipe Carrillo Puerto y José María Morelos) y no está restringida al ámbito turístico, ya que integra diferentes elementos que confluyen en el desarrollo sustentable regional y la conservación del medio ambiente. Uno de estos elementos es la conservación del agua a …

“This Is The Psychology We Need”: Maya Immigrant Views On Mental Health Treatment, Robin Chancer

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

This paper engages the theme of psychological-physical-spiritual health among displaced Maya communities. To pursue knowledge about the communities’ visions for thriving in the United States, I worked with Maya leaders in Ohio to coordinate a series of dialogues utilizing a Participatory Action Research paradigm. Participants exposed ways in which Western institutions (including hospitals, mental health providers, and schools) reenact elements of colonialism and fail to offer culturally sensitive care. The participants emphasized a key missing element in their well-being: renewing the relationship with the Earth that they lost through colonization and forced migration. To separate physical/mental health from these elements …

Who Claims This Stone? Searching For Meaning In My Mother’S Greenstone Maya Figurine, Grace Keyes

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

The ekphrastic poem and the essay presented here revolves around a greenstone figurine that was found in Guatemala about a hundred years ago. I composed the poem as a way to capture the thoughts that passed through my mind as I contemplated this statuette. The figurine was given to me by my mother who had little information about it but believed it was an ancient Maya artifact. Over many years, I often wondered about the hidden secrets such an artifact may hold. During my teaching career, I took the figurine into archaeology classes as a useful teaching tool to help …

Castillos En La Arena. Turismo, Desigualdad Laboral Y Reproducción Cultural En Torno A Tulum-Pueblo, Quintana Roo, Alejandro Martinez

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

El presente artículo busca reflexionar acerca de las consecuencias de los procesos de poblamiento y turistificación que repercuten en la explotación territorial y cooptación de mano de obra en las últimas décadas en la llamada Riviera Maya de Quintana Roo, México. A pesar de la migración interna y la desigualdad laboral, algunos jóvenes mayas aún desean conservar ciertos elementos rituales al ser descendientes de los combatientes durante la Guerra de Castas de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX. A partir del trabajo de campo realizado entre 2021 y 2023 con los músicos y organizadores del culto a las cruces sagradas, …

La Creación De Una Civilización: Arquitectos, Dibujantes E Ingenieros A Finales Del Siglo Xviii Y Principios Del Siglo Xix En La Provincia De Chiapa, Omar López Espinosa

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

El artículo se enfoca en el papel protagónico que tuvieron algunos arquitectos, dibujantes e ingenieros en la producción de las primeras imágenes de una ciudad abandonada en el extremo norte de la selva de la Provincia de Chiapa, conocida como las Casas de Piedra (hoy nombrada Palenque). El propósito del escrito es mostrar la relevancia que tuvieron esos dibujos en la discusión sobre los primeros pobladores de América, al ser recuperados por algunos editores/anticuaristas como Henry Berthould (1822), Lord Kinsborough (1831), Henry Baranderé (1834) o Brasseur de Bourbourg (1866) en la primera mitad del siglo XIX. Estos personajes dieron a …

Juan José Arévalo 1945 To 1951: Legacies And Lessons For The Current Democracy Movement In Guatemala, Alan Lebaron

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

Juan José Arévalo and the “revolutionaries” brought tremendous change to Guatemala. But well before Arévalo left office, the Revolution was already in the crosshairs of US military might. At least three challenges threatened the government of Arévalo: the ultra conservatives or the “anti-revolutionaries”; competitive aspirations of the revolutionaries; and the overarching power of the US businesses and US government. Arévalo encountered these challenges from the first day of his presidency, and thereafter. Bernardo Arévalo, Guatemala’s recently elected president, faces similar dangers: a powerful opposition from an entrenched civilian and military oligarchy, urban and rural disconnections, foreign economic power and influences, …

Complete Issue: Volume 5 Issue 2, Maya America Editors

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

The full Issue 2, Volume 5 of Maya America, published December 2023

Introductory Note: Ownership And Dominion In The Lands Of The Maya, Maya America Editors

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

Editors' introduction of Maya America Volume 5 Issue 2

Biographies/Biografías, Maya America Editors

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

Author Biographies

Migranthood: Youth In A New Era Of Deportation, James Loucky

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

Book Review Migranthood: Youth in a New Era of Deportation Lauren Heidbrink Stanford University Press, 2020. 240p.

Los Hilos De La Memoria Y La Resistencia Del Pueblo Ixil De San Juan Cotzal, Jonatan Mariano Rodas Gómez

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

Reseña del libro La cuarta invasión. Historias y resistencia del Pueblo Ixil, y su lucha contra la Hidroeléctrica Palo Viejo en Cotzal, Quiché, Guatemala. GIOVANNI BATZ (2022) Asociación para el Avance de las Ciencias Sociales en Guatemala -AVANCSO-. Guatemala.

Transfer Pathways: Ensuring Transfer Student Success, Jonathan Vega Martinez, Fabián Torres-Ardila, Lorna Rivera, Michelle Sunday

Gastón Institute Publications

This report reflects the partnership between the University of Massachusetts Boston’s Gastón Institute and Bunker Hill Community College’s Center for Equity and Cultural Wealth to build cultural inclusivity in curricular and co-curricular practices with the diverse student bodies served by both postsecondary institutions.

The partnership was created with the aim to develop activities and create data, including data sharing and joint data collection, to explore and create common research questions that will help close diversity gaps across the two institutions. This report is part of a study that seeks to improve the partners’ understanding of student transfer pathways between these …

Anita Brenner’S Vision: A Transnational Search For Mexican Jewish Identity, Gina Malagold

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation traces U.S.-Mexico cross-border networks during the cultural Renaissance of early 20^th century influenced by artistic and intellectual encounters in post-revolutionary Mexico. I explore from a transnational perspective the representation of Mexican-Jewish identity in post-revolutionary Mexico through the lens of Mexican-American Jewish anthropologist, artist, and journalist Anita Brenner (1905-1974). In my dissertation, Anita Brenner’s Vision: A Transnational Search for Mexican Jewish Identity, I expand on the notion of mexicanidad and reframe the cosmopolitanism of the time and its manifestation in the United States, arguing that Brenner’s contributions were instrumental in linking Mexico to the larger map of …

Crisis Y Paradojas: Subjetividades Femeninas En La Literatura De Autoayuda Para Latinas, Aida Roldan-Garcia

Doctoral Dissertations

"Crisis y Paradojas" examines the construction of modern Hispanic femininity in self-help literature aimed at U.S. Latinx women. The work is divided into three thematic sections and begins with an analysis of two texts belonging to this ethnic niche: The Maria Paradox: How Latinas Can Merge Old World Traditions With New World Self-Esteem by Rosa María Gil and Carmen Inoa; and The Latina’s Bible by Sandra Guzmán. The first part explores the origins of the new Latinx woman of the 1990s and 2000s within contemporary Latinx literature and introduces the main characteristics of Latinx women's self-help literature. The second section …

An Empowerment Evaluation Of Colorado Mountain College’S Mountain Scholars Program Via Latino Alumni Aspirational Goals And Outcomes, Laura Anne Bruch

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative inquiry evaluated Colorado Mountain College’s (CMC) in-house Mountain Scholars Program (MSP) via semi-structured interviews with five of its Latino alumni. This study’s assets-based social justice/transformative philosophical framework included David Fetterman’s methodological empowerment evaluation and Tara Yosso’s conceptual community cultural wealth (CCW) theory. This dissertation in practice examined the gap in literature with regards to an in-house student support services program evaluation that partners with the community and focuses on Latinos’ aspirations and aspirational outcomes. I wanted to be a worthy witness to the student demographic group at CMC, as well as at most American postsecondary institutions, considered the …

Latino Voter Participation In The 2018 And 2022 Midterm Elections, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction

This study analyzes Latino voting participation, comparing the US midterm elections of the years 2018 and 2022.

Method

The study is a descriptive and comparative analysis using data from the 2022 Voting and Registration Data from the US Census Bureau.

Discussion

The study found that nationally, only 37.9% of eligible Latino voters took part in the 2022 midterms, compared to 40.4% in the 2018 midterms. Despite this decline in the percentage of registered voters casting ballots in 2022, the percentage of Latinos registered to vote rose from 53.7% in 2018 to 57.8% in 2022.

Second-Generation Latino Immigrant Assimilation In Massachusetts, Phillip Granberry, Mary Jo Marion

Gastón Institute Publications

Approximately one-fourth of Latinos in Massachusetts are second-generation immigrants. This population is defined as having at least one foreign-born parent. Massachusetts has 216,964 second-generation Latino immigrants, which ranks fourteenth among states. However, second-generation Latinos represent a 25.5% share of all Latinos in Massachusetts, and this share ranks 35th among states. In comparison, 37.8% of all Latinos in California are second-generation immigrants. This lower share in Massachusetts is because Puerto Ricans, the largest Latino population in the Commonwealth, have birthright citizenship and therefore are not considered foreign-born.

The foreign-born have many reasons for migrating, but their children's future success is a …

Mama’S Got A Brand New Degree: Education And Changing Perceptions Of Femininity During The Mexican Revolution (1910-1917), Eden E. Baize

The Cardinal Edge

Bloody struggles, tense political debates, and general unease characterized Mexico in the early twentieth century. Under former president Porfirio Díaz, tensions grew as the lower classes pleaded for labor and land reform, culminating in a violent period of revolution from 1910 to 1917. As with all conflicts of this scale, the Mexican Revolution prompted the challenging of many long standing social conventions, specifically as they pertained to the role of government and the organization of social classes. With the restructuring of society already underway, many activists capitalized on the uncertainty of the era to push against the subjugation of women. …

Ships In Houston, Nadia Villafuerte, Julie Ann Ward

Undiscovered Americas

Ships in Houston by Nadia Villafuerte, translated by Julie Ann Ward, is a harrowing and heartrending collection of fifteen stories that bring to life characters who, though they exist independently from one another, inhabit the same world: Mexico’s southern border. Using acute attention to language, such as various dialects and slang, to create a nuanced and varied mood and setting, Villafuerte’s stories track exotic dancers, sex workers, truck drivers, drug dealers, immigration officials, and even a mayor’s daughter to create compelling fictions rooted in the harsh realities of borderlands that many choose to overlook. While the US’s southern border with …

Brasileiros Nos Estados Unidos E Em Massachusetts: Um Perfil Demográfico E Econômico, Michelle Borges, Phillip Granberry, Alvaro Lima, Victor Luis Martins

Gastón Institute Publications

Os brasileiros têm uma presença significativa e em crescimento nos Estados Unidos. Em 2021, o Ministério das Relações Exteriores do Brasil estimou que 4.215.800 brasileiros estavam vivendo no exterior. Dentre eles, calculou-se que 42% estavam vivendo nos EUA. Portugal (7%) foi o segundo país mais procurado por Brasileiros, seguido por Paraguai (6%), Reino Unido (5%), Japão (5%), Itália (4%), Espanha (4%), Alemanha (3%), Canadá (3%), e França (2%) seguidos por uma série de outros países.

É bem documentado que o Censo dos Estados Unidos subestima as populações de baixa renda, estudantes e imigrantes, especialmente os indocumentados. No entanto, dentro dessa …