ABSTRACT

This chapter provides a context for the analysis of religious practice. The context is Indiantown, Florida, where some eight thousand Maya people live far from their highland Guatemala homes. Sources of employment often require that the Maya worker travel from Indiantown daily for distances of from twenty-five to one hundred miles. Maya men and women have acquired a reputation for hard work, little complaining, and close attention to agricultural detail work. Several Mayas are employed in the service sector, working as teachers’ aides in the schools, in the grocery, and as aides or translators for legal and health-care professionals. Family reunification is one of the prime concerns of most Indiantown Maya people. Even apparently complete families often have one or more children left behind in Guatemala. Those who have residence papers may petition for visas for their wives, parents and children, and do so, but the long wait is not patiently borne, and some take matters into their own hands.