In what ways are Mayans living in Los Angeles connected to Quetzaltenango?
How is Quetzaltenango a site that invites us to reimagine how we connect to a place across time?
7.7 Students compare and contrast the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the Meso-American and Andean civilizations.
7.7.4. Describe the artistic and oral traditions and architecture in the three civilizations.
7.7.5. Describe the Meso-American achievements in astronomy and mathematics, including the development of the calendar and the Meso-American knowledge of seasonal changes to the civilizations' agricultural systems.
Framework
What were the multiple ways people of different cultures interacted at sites of encounter? What were the effects of their interactions?
Los Angeles has the largest indigenous population of any city in the United States.
Los Angeles - Quetzaltenango - Xela
Wonder and Think
Describe what you see in this image. How do you think this image was made? What do you think this is? |
|
Read the following image and then answer the questions below.
Document #1 Kab’ awil
Document Analysis
Embroidered Kab’awil on a Huipil
“Quetzaltenango taught me about having a double view, usually anchored in the entity of the Kab’awil. The Kab’awil is most often represented by a two-headed bird where the heads do not face each other but, instead, look out to the universe. According to my elders, including literary critic Gloria Chacón who uses the Kab’awil as a framework for her work, this
bird/concept is about expanding our possibility to see the complexity of life and recognize that the natural order of things is complementary multiplicity, not singularity.”
Naming, A Coming Home: Latinidad and Indigeneity in Settler Colony
Vocabulary Squares
Huipil
Corte
Resilient:
(adjective)
Characterized or marked by resilience.
Remittance:
(noun)
the money or goods that migrants send back to families and friends in origin countries
Mam
(noun)
A Mayan language spoken by about half a million Mam people in the Guatemalan departments of Quetzaltenango, Huehuetenango, San Marcos, and Retalhuleu, and the Mexican state of Chiapas
Document #2 Mina Tikal Alvarado-Goldberg, age 14
Document Analysis
Document #3 Maricela Lopez, age 26
Document Analysis
Document #4 Remittances- the money migrant communities send home
Document Analysis
“Every year, the estimated 3 million Guatemalans in the U.S. send vast amounts of money home to try to improve life for their families. In 2021, … remittances to Guatemala reached a record $15.3 billion—making up 17.8% of the nation’s entire economy (compared with 9.2% in 2011).” Time
“Remittances, the money immigrants send loved ones at home, vastly exceed U.S. aid and represent an enormous share of the recipient nations’ GDPs. For example, the Biden administration pledged $4 billion over four years to Central America. Compare that with $11.4 billion in remittances received just by Guatemalans in 2020 alone. That’s equivalent to 15% of Guatemala’s GDP.
“The money is already going to the villages where the money is needed,” Hinojosa-Ojeda told me. Simple improvements to the remittance process would help many remain in their countries of origin. Problems arise because money is generally wired via Western Union for a fee, and must be withdrawn as cash. Often, undocumented senders and rural recipients don’t have bank accounts to facilitate saving. They must spend or hide the cash.” LA Times
Applying Concepts
Where in your life do you have a double vision? Where are your internal sites of encounter?
Formative Task
Document #5
Coming Out as Indian: On being an indigenous Latina in the United States
By Lourdes Alberto
Document Analysis
Directions:
Reread- Segundo Acto: My Students “come out as Indian”
As you read think about the following questions:
How might this reading fit into this lesson?
How might this reading inform our teaching of the Maya?
“I lived in a kind of Duboisian ‘‘double consciousness,’’ in which I saw myself as first and foremost ‘‘Indian,’’ while my peers and educational institution saw me as a Mexican, immigrant, Spanish speaker, and ‘‘at risk.’’
I have continually witnessed performative moments in my classrooms in which students come out as Indian to their fellow mestizo/a, Indigenous and othernonIndigenous students. Most recently, in a Chicana/o Experiences course, a Mayan student from Guatemala, in halting language, stated, ‘‘OK. OK, I’m just going to say it. I’m Indigenous. OK, I’m Maya from Guatemala,’’ during a discussion on immigration.”