“I became more Maya”: International Kaqchikel Maya Migration in Central America

Abstract

Previous scholarship highlights migration from the Global South to the Global North. This paper focuses on South-South migration using a case study of a Kaqchikel Maya woman, Brenda, migrating from Guatemala to El Salvador. Her life history and participant-observation data were gathered over the course of 18 months between 2010 and 2015. In her case, migration within Central America encouraged ethnic revitalization, particularly through her investment in Kaqchikel language and clothing. Such revitalization might be a common occurrence among indigenous women and is a significant consequence for indigenous women because of the reinforcement of gendered ethnic work as women are responsible for reproducing indigenous language and the use of ethnically marked clothing.