Endangered Peoples of Latin America: Struggles to Survive and Thrive (The Greenwood Press "Endangered Peoples of the World" Series)

Latin America comprises varied biophysical environments and diverse populations living in widely disparate economic circumstances. Endangered Peoples of Latin America: Struggles to Survive and Thrive includes peoples hit hardest by the current globalization trend. Each chapter profiles a specific people or peoples with a cultural overview of their history, subsistence strategies, social and political organization, and religion and world view; threats to their survival; and responses to these threats. A section entitled Food for Thought provides questions that encourage a personal engagement with the experiences of these peoples, and a resource guide suggests further reading and lists films and videos and pertinent organizations and web sites. As the curriculum expands to include more multicultural and indigenous peoples, this unique volume will be valuable to both students and teachers.

Rare insight on how some of Latin America's indigenous and marginalized groups struggle to survive and thrive.

VOYA

In thirteen chapters authored by eminent anthropologists and educators, this volume takes a close look at various Latin American indigenous or marginalized groups whose survival in today's world is at stake. Among these endangered groups are the Kuna of Panama, the Villagers at the edge of Mexico City, the Awa of Ecuador, the English-speaking Bay Islanders of Honduras, and the Quechua of the Peruvian Andes. These groups, as well as others mentioned, have attained a degree of success in maintaining their traditional cultures and ancestral way of life. Nevertheless they face mounting social, economic, and environmental pressures, not only from the outside world but also from within, as internal divisive factions get in the way of a solid, unified front to preserve their ancient ways, coexist in an increasingly demanding modern society, and confront an uncertain future. Each chapter addresses the individual group's problems and provides a cultural overview that includes the various threats to its existence as well as the efforts to survive culturally. The chapters end with probing questions about the issues covered, source notes, a resource guide, Web sites, and in some cases, lists of videos, films, and support organizations where available. Part of the thought-provoking Endangered Peoples of the World series, this comprehensive, informative book is mainly for the mature teen with a serious interest in anthropology in general and in Latin American cultures and social issues in particular. Glossary. Index. Photos. Maps. VOYA CODES: 4Q 2P J S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; For the YA with a special interest in the subject; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9;Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2001, Greenwood, 264p. PLB $45. Ages 12 to 18. Reviewer: Delia A. Culberson SOURCE: VOYA, February 2002 (Vol. 24, No.6)

The Mayans of Central Quintana Roo / David Barton Bray The rural people of Mexico's northwest coast / María L. Cruz-Torres Villagers at the edge of Mexico City / Scott S. Robinson Artisanal fisherfolk of the gulf of Fonseca / Jorge Varela Marquez, Kate Cissna, and Susan C. Stonich The English-speaking Bay Islanders / Susan C. Stonich The Miskito of Honduras and Nicaragua / David J. Dodds Indigenous and Ladino-speaking peoples of the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, Honduras / Peter H. Herlihy The Ngóbe of western Panama / John R. Bort and Philip D. Young The Kuna of Panama / James Howe The Tz'utujil Maya of Guatemala / James Loucky The Awa of Ecuador / Janet M. Chernela The Otavaleños of the Ecuadorian Highlands / Rudi Colloredo-Mansfield The Quechua of the Peruvian Andes / Paul H. Gelles. From 1850 to 1901, a group of Yucatec Maya known as the Cruzob or "people of the Cross" refused to be displaced by or incorporated into expanding sugar plantations, defied the Mexican nation, and established a rebel state in the forests in the interior of Quintana Roo, at the time a remote region in the eastern Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.