Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

“We are invisible; the greater community does not even know we exist or are here,” reflects Yesenia, former Maya Mam child migrant. She adds: “Our own people are helping others” and creating solutions to the needs of newly arrived migrant families, making visible Indigenous peoples’ experiences in the diaspora. According to Miguel, resettlement in the North “is another world. There may be protection and resources, but inequality is still visible. My greatest protection has been arriving in a community familiar to me because my own K'iche’ and Ixil peoples are there fighting for their fallen brothers and sisters and justice.” It is Maya community members’ advocacy that enables the connection to resources. Per youth members, the support comes from community organizations like the Mayan League, social workers, the schools, or from guardians or parents if they are still with family. In other instances, religious communities help connect families to networks and resources.

The Mayan League’s approach is rooted in our cosmovision, history, and culture. We promote and protect our rights to sovereignty, self-determination, and existence across imposed settler colonial borders. We work tirelessly to make our presence visible in mainstream immigration discourse given the limited access of Indigenous voices and organizations to these spaces. As Miguel says, “In the United States, brothers and sisters rebuild lives and have families, yet this often happens in secrecy. Why do we hide? Out of fear, because we don't want our children to suffer what we have suffered.” Given the traumatic experiences of leaving everything behind and migrating to the United States, Indigenous children and youth hide their identity. This becomes one of the biggest barriers to assisting newly arrived Indigenous families, coupled with misclassification of our peoples as Latinx or Hispanic by the dominant community and news media. The Mayan League creates a narrative that acknowledges, dignifies, and centers our Indigeneity. Through social, political, cultural, and spiritual formation, particularly of youth leaders, we develop Indigenous leadership to advance our rights and advocate for ourselves, our peoples, and Mother Earth.

For example, we created the first Maya Health Promotores Model in the DC metropolitan region, an initiative born out of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Promotores are trusted individuals in the community. Unaccompanied minors, children, and families have come forward with more than just COVID-19 vaccine needs. They reach out with requests for food assistance, school enrollment, financial support, legal resources, Maya language interpretation, and repatriation of deceased loved ones.

Training Maya language interpreters to advance Indigenous language rights has also been critical. Our approach develops new leadership rooted in Maya identity and culture to strengthen Maya interpreters to defend the rights of our communities with a strong foundation of our ancestral knowledge and values.

Just as we cannot understand the present without understanding the past, we cannot address the situation in our local community without a binational response and support for our peoples in our ancestral lands. Our Indigenous Solidarity Fund supports Maya families in diaspora and Maya communities under attack in Guatemala as another way to address root drivers of forced migration.

In conclusion, the International Mayan League works closely with Indigenous communities in the U.S. diaspora and Guatemala to assert their rights to exist. Centering Indigenous children and youth perspectives, stories, and lived experiences through the simple act of listening allows the innovation of our peoples to lead solutions and transform how we work together.

To protect the identity of the former unaccompanied Maya K’iche’ minor and Mam child migrant, we have used the pseudonyms Miguel and Yesenia to share their migration journey and experiences of resettlement.

Juanita Cabrera Lopez is Maya Mam Nation and executive director of the International Mayan League. She is originally from the Western Highlands of Guatemala, survivor of the internal armed conflict in Guatemala, and former political refugee. She holds a master of international public policy from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Dr. Emil’ Keme (Emilio del Valle Escalante) is an Indigenous K’iche’ Maya scholar and member of the Maya anticolonial collective Ixb’alamkyej Junajpu Wunaq’. He teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Le Maya Q’atzij/Our Maya Word. Poetics of Resistance in Guatemala (2021).

Lorena Brady, policy and program manager at the International Mayan League, is from Quito, Ecuador. She has worked alongside Indigenous leaders, elders, attorneys, and human rights defenders for over a decade. She holds a bachelor’s in government and international politics with a minor in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University.