Description: This comprehensive study of five phases of Guatemalan migration--both Maya and ladino--to the United States from the late 1970s to the present illuminates the transregional experiences of those who pass through Mexico.
Brief description: A scholar of Latin America, particularly Guatemala and Central America, for more than four decades, SUSANNE JONAS was on the faculty of the University of California, Santa Cruz for twenty-four years and received a Distinguished Teaching Award. Her numerous previous books include Of Centaurs and Doves: Guatemala's Peace Process, which was designated a Choice "Outstanding Academic Book." Since the 1990s, she has become a specialist on Guatemalan/Central American migration and has worked extensively with Latino immigrant community organizations.
Review Quotes: "...an extremely timely, ground-breaking, and very well written account...of Guatemalan migration to the US...The authors take us far beyond the latest headlines in the first book-length study addressing Guatemalan migration to the US as a national, rather than community-specific, phenomenon. . . Migrants exercise agency in important ways, from deciding to migrate out of desperate conditions to building better living and working conditions in the US to clamoring to change migration policies to practicing cultural expressions and creating organizations in new communities. This in turn has affected the social structure in ways large and small as the larger immigration process reshapes communities across the US. Jonas and Rodríguez have made an outstanding scholarly contribution to our understanding of these issues in a book that deserves a wide readership and discussion."-- "NACLA" (9/20/2015 12:00:00 AM)