This article centers two "zones of sovereignty" that Maya Chuj youth organizers and educators in Guatemala and the United States created from within and across nation-states and settler colonial projects. It highlights how these spaces supported Chuj young people and educators as they navigated and (re)imagined relationality and…

This paper analyzes, and discusses Maya family narratives as they pertain to the educational perspectives and values they shared about their relatives in East Oakland, California. These were on display in ethnographic interview contexts conducted with families of Maya youth on their ancestral lands in the Guatemalan departments of Huehuetenango…

This article describes the journey I embarked on as a teacher-researcher to better understand the realities of two of my Maya English learners (ELs) in our learning environment. This yearlong (2018-2019) study took the form of a qualitative case study inquiry whose purpose was to explore how two Maya migrant youth from Guatemala experienced and…

Changes in family life related to globalization may include reduction in the collaborativeness observed in many Indigenous American communities. The present study examined longitudinal changes and continuities in collaboration in a Guatemalan Maya community experiencing rapid globalization. Fluid collaboration was widespread 3 decades ago among…

Global South and Indigenous communities often represent the contexts of international service learning (ISL) programs. However, rarely are the effects of historical colonization and the potential colonizing impact of Global North visitors being investigated. Central to this article is our story as Global North and settler-Canadian researchers who…

This essay explores how stories of Tecum, Maya K'iche' warrior, and the quetzal can serve as creative entry points to contextualize the racialization and ideological positioning in Guatemala of Maya migrant youth who are now in U.S. schools. As we work on radicalizing possibilities and re-imagining liberatory futures, our efforts lie in crafting…

This article examines the challenges faced and lessons learned while developing the SPEAK Young Women's Vocal Empowerment Curriculum and leading 30 educators through a Professional Development Training on the curriculum in Guatemala in 2019. The guiding question is, "What does it take to train non-teaching artists in the skills needed to lead…

This article is the second in a pair examining my experience leading 30 educators through professional development training on the "SPEAK Young Women's Vocal Empowerment Curriculum" in Guatemala. To guide my examination, I have looked to the question, "What does it take to train non-teaching artists in the skills needed to lead a…

Bilingual education can promote a sense of school belonging for students through a shared valuing of students' home languages and cultures. This article explores how bilingual education contributes to sense of belonging for students who have more than one home language and are becoming trilingual in school. This qualitative study examines how a…

One highly significant yet under-investigated source of variation within the Latinx Education scholarship are Indigenous immigrants from Latin America. This study investigates how Maya and other Indigenous recent immigrant youth from Guatemala and Mexico, respectively, understand indigeneity. Using a Critical Latinx Indigeneities analytic, along…

This study examines how traditional ecological knowledge--TEK--can be identified and utilized to create culturally responsive science learning opportunities for Maya girls from a community in the Guatemalan highlands. Maya girls are situated in a complex socio-historical and political context rooted in racism and sexism. This study contextualizes…

In the highlands of Guatemala, the Maya Indians weave colorful, vibrant textiles. Many of these beautiful fabrics are used to make traditional clothing for the men, women, and children who live in the rural villages. In Mayan culture, dress is important for more than just keeping warm and covered. It serves as a sort of uniform that immediately…

Certain dates stand out in history--October 12, 1492; July 4, 1776; and May 8, 1945, to name a few. Will December 21, 2012, become such a date? The popular media have seized on 12/21/12 to make apocalyptical prognostications, some venturing so far as to predict the end of the world. Scholars reject such predictions. But major archeological finds…

Over more than three decades spent researching cultural aspects of how children learn, the author has had the opportunity to learn about how individuals and cultural communities change and continue. During her research on children's learning by observing and "pitching in" in a Mayan community in Guatemala, the author learned a great deal…

Community-based forestry has received much recent attention as an effort to protect threatened Southern forests by linking conservation with sustainable livelihoods. Many researchers have emphasized the importance of effective organization for successful community-based forestry. While significant attention has been paid to community-level…