The Children of Conquest in the New Age: Ethnicity and Change Among the Highland Maya

Abstract

This article will examine ethnic relations in the countryside as a cause of rural/urban migration among the Maya Indians of western Guatemala and will question the inevitability of such migration by looking at a contrasting course of development among the Maya of southern Mexico. Comparison of Zinacantan in Mexico and Aguacatán in Guatemala suggests that rural development may be an alternative to migration to cities, but only if such development breaks the political and economic domination of non-Indians in rural communities.