Traveling back and forth between the Guatemalan highlands and Providence, Rhode Island, the author followed the migration paths of a community of K'iche' Indians, often acting as a courier to bring news and photographs to families. As several said to the author, "Now you have lived with your own skin what we have gone through, only you can leave at any time."

This ethnography juxtaposes the context of post-war reconstruction at home, shaped by a fragile institutional peace process and emerging pan-Maya movement, with the hidden, marginal lives of mostly undocumented K'iche' transmigrants in New England, and describes the continuous movement of people, money, symbols, and ideas between the two locations. Transnational migration creates tension between material success and K'iche' traditional suspicion of standing out and displaying that success. Showing off or losing touch with one's responsibilities at home can invite envidias (envy), chismes (malicious gossip), and even brujeria (witchcraft).

Some of the perpetrators of violence in Guatemala have re-created their positions of dominance in Providence. One K'iche' recounts, "He used a notebook, like the one you have, and each time I took even a glass of water he would write it down. He charged me $300 just for arriving, those $300 were like a tip for him. He told me he would not help me find work, and he would drink a lot and would say, 'You thought it would be easy here, you thought it is just picking up dollars here--well, you are screwed.'"

For students, the book provides rich accounts of the difficulties of entering the field and maintaining trust among people in divided and changing communities."

Traveling back and forth between the Guatemalan highlands and Providence, Rhode Island, the author followed the migration paths of a community of K'iche' Indians, often acting as a courier to bring news and photographs to families. As several said to the author, "Now you have lived with your own skin what we have gone through, only you can leave at any time."

This ethnography juxtaposes the context of post-war reconstruction at home, shaped by a fragile institutional peace process and emerging pan-Maya movement, with the hidden, marginal lives of mostly undocumented K'iche' transmigrants in New England, and describes the continuous movement of people, money, symbols, and ideas between the two locations. Transnational migration creates tension between material success and K'iche' traditional suspicion of standing out and displaying that success. Showing off or losing touch with one's responsibilities at home can invite envidias (envy), chismes (malicious gossip), and even brujeria (witchcraft).

Some of the perpetrators of violence in Guatemala have re-created their positions of dominance in Providence. One K'iche' recounts, "He used a notebook, like the one you have, and each time I took even a glass of water he would write it down. He charged me $300 just for arriving, those $300 were like a tip for him. He told me he would not help me find work, and he would drink a lot and would say, 'You thought it would be easy here, you thought it is just picking up dollars here--well, you are screwed.'"

For students, the book provides rich accounts of the difficulties of entering the field and maintaining trust among people in divided and changing communities."

In the mid-1990s, Patricia Foxen traveled back and forth between the Guatemalan highlands and Providence, Rhode Island, to understand the migration paths of K'iche' Mayan Indians who had fled the Guatemalan civil war to work in the factories and fisheries of New England. More than two decades later, many Mayans are still migrating to the U.S., today part of the 'border crisis' that prompted Trump administration's ruthless immigration and asylum policy backlash. As Foxen argues, the recent surge in Mayan border crossings must be contextualized within both the longer history of violence, marginality, and exclusion that has long led Guatemala's indigenous populations to be 'survivors on the move,' and in terms of the contemporary push factors such as climate change and growing inequality that have forced people from their communities. And yet, one of the most significant drivers of continued emigration today, ironically, is the very culture of migration (described in the book) that has accelerated social change within many indigenous communities, setting in motion a complex series of economic and cultural shifts that have compelled a continuous movement of people and generations to the U.S. Reading this story in 2020 - at a time of massive growth in flows of irregular migrations around the world - can help us better understand the highly complex set of factors that propel long-term migrations and that shape transnational communities on both sides of the border. In Search of Providence offers a layered, historically-grounded perspective that speaks to the local specificity behind the migration experience in order to point to the universal themes and contradictions of contemporary global displacements.

In the mid-1990s, Patricia Foxen traveled back and forth between the Guatemalan highlands and Providence, Rhode Island, to understand the migration paths of K'iche' Mayan Indians who had fled the Guatemalan civil war to work in the factories and fisheries of New England. More than two decades later, many Mayans are still migrating to the U.S., today part of the 'border crisis' that prompted Trump administration's ruthless immigration and asylum policy backlash. As Foxen argues, the recent surge in Mayan border crossings must be contextualized within both the longer history of violence, marginality, and exclusion that has long led Guatemala's indigenous populations to be 'survivors on the move,' and in terms of the contemporary push factors such as climate change and growing inequality that have forced people from their communities. And yet, one of the most significant drivers of continued emigration today, ironically, is the very culture of migration (described in the book) that has accelerated social change within many indigenous communities, setting in motion a complex series of economic and cultural shifts that have compelled a continuous movement of people and generations to the U.S. Reading this story in 2020 - at a time of massive growth in flows of irregular migrations around the world - can help us better understand the highly complex set of factors that propel long-term migrations and that shape transnational communities on both sides of the border. In Search of Providence offers a layered, historically-grounded perspective that speaks to the local specificity behind the migration experience in order to point to the universal themes and contradictions of contemporary global displacements.