College

College of Liberal Arts

Department

Ethnic Studies Department

Degree Name

BA in Comparative Ethnic Studies

Date

6-2011

Advisor(s)

Kathleen Martin

Abstract/Summary

Latin American Indigenous Peoples (LAIP) are a marginalized segment in Latin America. They inhabit a sub-America and are forced to migrate due to socio-political struggle and cultural coercion. LAIP experience a transnational and transborder migration that reflects the quality of cultural hybridity and of regional, ethnic, and cultural crossings. The purpose of this study is to research LAIP ways of reclaiming and reproducing cultural practices that elicit Indigenous awareness, knowledge, and ethnic identification in a transnational setting. The study examines through interviews and photographs transborder experiences and the lives of the participants. As a result, the project reveals that LAIP are in a continual process of ethnic and cultural identification with their native roots through the usage of cultural activities and the acknowledgment of multicultural coexistence. It also supports the necessity of participant involvement during the research process of interviews and photographic and data analysis. This joint process creates a supported living narrative that explores LAIP life in the United States. The principal outcome provides support that LAIP cultural practices reflect their perspective from where they are standing in the American social and cultural sphere.

Share

COinS