In Search of Providence: Transnational Mayan Identities
With her in-depth case study of Guatemalan K'iche migrants from Xinxuc to Providence, Rhode Island, Patricia Foxen has filled a significant gap in the literature on Guatemalan migration to the U.S. This beautifully nuanced account captures the complexities of reproduced, changing and multiple K'iche identities in new settings, and of Mayan transnational practices. It also provides  a window for seeing the contradictions of post-war rural Guatemala--Susanne Jonas, University of California, Santa CruzFoxen's text is a fascinating analysis of the experiences of a community of K'iche' Mayans, the largest indigenous group in Guatemala, who have been migrating to Providence, RI over the past two decades. She vividly describes how transnational K'iche's develop new survival strategies and mechanisms for reshaping identities in a context of growing hostility toward undocumented migrants in the country of settlement, and in the face of turmoil at home--both of which have left deep marks on the social tissue. She also highlights the many problems that researchers face in unstable post-war environments where suspicions, expectations and distrust shape most interactions. Through her rich narrative, Foxen transmits a deep understanding of life in indigenous communities in Guatemala and in the US, describing with clarity events and behaviors that often remain perplexing to 'outsiders'.--Manuel Angel Castillo, Colegio de MexicoPatricia Foxen has written an impressively thorough, sensitive, insightful, stereotype-and-complacency shattering, and thus also courageous, portrait of one of the most complex and tragic immigrant communities in the United States: the Guatemalan highland Maya of Providence, Rhode Island, for whom coming to the U.S. hardly means leaving Guatemala's horror or cultural pathologies behind.  (How appropriate that this takes place in the city of HP Lovecraft!)  I learned a great deal from this astonishing, beautifully written, brilliant and heartbreaking book.--Francisco Goldman