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April 20, 2022

Responding To: Innovating Protection for Migrant and Asylum-Seeking Children in U.S. Communities

Maya Peoples' Resurgence Across Settler Colonial Borders

Juanita Cabrera Lopez, Executive Director, International Mayan League; Dr. Emil’ Keme, Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Lorena Brady, Policy and Program Manager, International Mayan League

Indigenous migrations and resettlements are organically tied to a history of colonialism and imperialism. We didn’t just appear in the North. The International Mayan League, the only Maya women-led organization in the United States, founded by Maya refugees fleeing war and genocide, responds to the needs and rights of the Maya and other displaced Indigenous peoples in the diaspora. For years, we have asserted Maya peoples’ human rights and their inclusion in decision making spaces. The following testimonies of Maya Ixil, K’iche’, and Mam peoples in Piscataway Nation Territory (DC metropolitan region) and Dover, Ohio, offer a glimpse into our diverse experiences in the U.S. diaspora.

Miguel, K’iche’ Maya and former unaccompanied youth, states that our journey to the north “begins because you want to provide better opportunities to your family, so you sacrifice your connection with Mother Earth, your peoples, and ancestors. Sadness engulfs you as you see your family disappear before your eyes on this journey in which you do not know if you will arrive alive. We are called Indians in our lands and told that we have no future. The government caters to the foreign elite rather than to the very people who put them in charge.

Beginning with our departure we suffer bullying, racism, and have no rights to anything because we are Indigenous. There is suffering and unequal treatment, misunderstandings, especially when we speak in our original languages because they think we are talking about them. Language is our biggest barrier. However, there is also a lack of food, and people think we don't have the right to eat because we are different. When seeking shelter, we are told to stay outdoors; we don’t need protection inside because we are used to living in the mountains because we are Indians. Each of these racist offenses opens wounds that many do not overcome.”

Miguel’s words relate to the Mayan League’s 2021 report, Human Rights Situation of Indigenous Peoples in Urban Settings, in which we underscore that Indigenous forced displacement is linked to more than 500 years of colonization, “imposition of colonial governments, borders, and institutions that promote structural racism, oppressive laws, and policies.” In recent decades, genocide, neoliberal extractive economic policies, and forced removal characterize Maya peoples’ migrations. Maya Mam and Ixil leaders indicate that there have been four historical eras of dispossession and displacement.

The first relates to the Spanish invasion; second by liberal economic reforms in the second half of the nineteenth century with the coffee industry; third, genocide of over 200,000 of our people during the armed conflict (1960-1996) and the forced migration of 1.5 million people. Now, in the fourth era, neoliberal economic reforms since 2004 cause waves of migration by extractive industries that bring environmental destruction and climate change. Though the 22 Maya nations in Guatemala represent a majority (about 80% of the population), we suffer structural and systemic exclusion. Indigenous children, women, girls, and youth are the most affected, and for them and their families, migration feels like their only hope. They risk their lives in their journey to the North and have even died under Mexican and U.S. custody.

Per the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, “Many Indigenous peoples who migrate to the United States across international land borders are unaccompanied Indigenous children who were separated from their parents at the border. They often suffer from trauma from before and during the migration journey and then struggle in poor urban settings where they are vulnerable and at risk, lacking resources to maintain their cultural identity, knowledge, traditional skills, or language.”

For Ixil, K’iche’, and Mam peoples resettled in Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia, and Ohio, security and safety against abuse, further trauma, and bullying is a priority. Food, clothing, medicine, housing, school registration, legal needs, and financial support are listed as key protection and safety needs for children. Additionally, they underscored the importance of keeping families together or to support children and their legal guardians in the integration process or reunification.

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.


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