Every day children of Guatemalan Maya immigrants balance two cultures. They reside in The United States and attend American schools but are being raised by their Guatemalan Maya parents. They continually navigate between the two and are faced with challenges daily. Since these children are influenced by two cultures, my interest was primarily on the cultural perspectives of these children, more specifically: what effects does the new culture have on the old? Through volunteering at a Guatemalan Maya after-school program, interviewing and administering the Children's Apperception Test, results showed these children to be influenced by American culture. The biggest indicator, play, was reported to be an important aspect in their lives, which is not considered essential in Maya culture. At the same time, these children keep close ties to their cultural heritage through their strong family ties. Overall, these children are influenced by American culture, but at the same time, keep their heritage. / by Tara Sprague. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2012. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

During the 1960's Guatemalan stability began to falter due to a political and social breakdown; guerilla violence and government repression emerged from this decade as common occurrences. In response to the instability within Guatemala, the US focused on providing significant financial aid to bolster a weak economy, while simultaneously working with the Guatemalan police and military to create more efficient and modern internal security forces capable of combating Communist subversion. Despite US attempts to foster stability, in 1963 President Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes was removed from office by a military coup organized by his opponents within Guatemala. The Lyndon B. Johnson administration continued to support the Guatemalan government and continued to provide economic and military assistance. Despite US assistance, the internal social and political divisions in Guatemala continued to result in violence. In the midst of the escalating violence, elections were held in 1966 and the center left candidate Julio Cesar Mendez Montenegro was elected as the new president of Guatemala. The election of a politically left president further radicalized the Guatemalan right, which resulted in attempted coups and acts of terror. The violence from the leftist guerillas and the radical rightist elements forced Mendez Montenegro to allow the military to use harsh counter-terror strategies to bring the country under control. Despite negative developments, the US consistently tried to help build Guatemalan stability. Unfortunately, its policies ignored the socio-economic inequalities, and internal division which was the biggest problem facing the nation. The internal political division that created the violence and instability made it impossible for any US assistance to have a meaningful impact. During the 1960's these developments in Guatemala paved the way for the violence and genocide of the 1980's and solidified a policy of US involvement that was inadequate and ineffective.

L’Amérique centrale s’est trouvée au centre de l’attention médiatique pendant les années 80 à cause de l’embrasement produit par les conflits armés et du fait de l’intérêt pour les témoignages liés aux revendications politiques. Le temps est venu de s’interroger aujourd’hui sur les voies empruntées par la littérature centre-américaine une vingtaine d’années après la signature des traités de paix. Cette question se trouve à l’origine de la présente étude : nous essayons de comprendre de quelle manière le roman contemporain s’intéresse à la construction des nouvelles subjectivités, quelles sont les nouvelles modalités de représentation propres à la fiction. La littérature centre-américaine contemporaine se présente de manière générale comme un domaine d’une grande diversité ; nous pouvons y lire une remise en question des contradictions, des luttes sociales et des discours dominants des sociétés de l’Isthme. Ces questionnements sont, à notre avis, reliés au texte littéraire du fait de la position privilégiée accordée à la subjectivité. Celle-ci a différentes manières de définir l’individu contemporain afin de renvoyer au lecteur toute une série d’énoncés tantôt intimistes, tantôt politiques et transgresseurs, qui montrent une crise dans la représentation des identités aussi bien personnelles que nationales. Jusqu’à quel point pouvons-nous considérer que la littérature centre-américaine contemporaine présente un renouvellement concernant les positions des sujets représentés dans les romans ? De quelle manière ces changements interagissent-ils dans une région conflictuelle, une région qui peine encore à définir sa propre identité ? Nous nous efforçons dans la thèse d’approfondir l’analyse des positions subjectives et des procédés littéraires ainsi que la démarche philosophique permettant la construction de nouveaux sujets-personnages dans un corpus constitué de romans publiés entre 1998 et 2009 par les écrivains suivants : Horacio Castellanos Moya, José Ricardo Chaves, Maurice Echeverría, Jacinta Escudos, Mauricio Orellana Suárez, Milagros Palma, Roberto Quesada et Uriel Quesada. Nous nous intéressons de manière particulière aux procédés narratifs mettant en rapport l’intimité et la subjectivité, avec la représentation des espaces corporels dessinés dans les romans, ainsi que les espaces géographiques et les lieux de la violence. Ces éléments vont dévoiler de nouveaux engagements et de nouveaux discours à un moment qui paraît dominé par la subjectivité. / Central America attracted greatly the media attention during the 1980s because of the armed conflicts and the increasing interest in testimonies linked to the political vindications. Now is the time to question the paths taken by Central American literature twenty years after the peace agreements were signed in the region. This question is found at the beginning of the present study on which we try to comprehend in what way the contemporary novel is interested in the construction of new subjectivities and in new means of representation specific to fiction. Contemporary Central American literature presents itself generally as a space of great diversity. We can read in it an important questioning of the contradictions, of the social struggles, and of the dominant discourses of isthmian societies. These questionings are, in our opinion, articulated on the literary text thanks to the privileged position given to subjectivity. It uses different ways to define the contemporary subject with the purpose of confronting the reader to a series of statements, intimist as well as political and transgressive, which express a crisis on the representation of national and personal identities. How far can we consider that contemporary Central American literature shows an important displacement related to the positions of the subjects represented in the novels? In what way said displacements interact in a conflictive region, a region which still has difficulties to define its own identity? On this thesis we make an effort to delve in the analysis of the subjective positions and in the literary and philosophical strategies which allow the construction of new subject-characters, in a corpus constituted of novels published between 1998 and 2009 by the following writers: Horacio Castellanos Moya, José Ricardo Chaves, Maurice Echeverría, Jacinta Escudos, Mauricio Orellana Suárez, Milagros Palma, Roberto Quesada, and Uriel Quesada. We are particularly interested in the narrative processes which relate intimacy and subjectivity with the representation of corporal spaces in the novels, as well as the geographical spaces and violence spaces. These elements will demonstrate new commitments and new discourses in a time that seems dominated by subjectivity.

ABSTRACT LANDSCAPES OF COMPASSION: A GUATEMALAN EXPERIENCE MAY 2011 TRAVIS WILLIAM SHULTZ A.S., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST B.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Peter Kumble, PhD If landscape architecture can intertwine with the practice of social justice, how should academic training provide an atmosphere where this correlation is developed? In a professional degree program, such as landscape architecture, there are a plethora of skills among students that can be utilized no only in their future careers, but during their academic experience. By learning the tools while implementing them, there is a profound educational opportunity to be taken advantage of. An even greater opportunity can be capitalized if the tools are implemented in a context where the deliverables make positive impacts on impoverished communities. The goal of this thesis is to demonstrate how a landscape architect can contribute to humanitarian efforts; and the opportunity for this contribution should begin within the walls of academia. To support this argument, the author reviews literature and clarifies the vision and targets of this style of learning. The most convincing part of this thesis was the implementation of a graduate level class, LA 591g: Applied Field Studies in Guatemala, where eight students, a professional, and a professor combined their scholastic, professional, and life experiences in a community service learning atmosphere. Their work lead to the start-up of AbonOrgánico, a non-for-profit company located in Guatemala City whose mission is: To supply necessary jobs to at-risk youth from impoverished communities within Guatemala City by taking organic waste from the Central Market in Guatemala City and producing high-quality compost. Students participated in a 9-day spring break trip to Guatemala City, 11 journal entries, 2 questionnaires, 5 group reflection meetings, a 145-slide department-wide presentation, and a 12-chapter manual including a site design, construction details, operational guidelines, and a business plan. In the pages of the thesis, the reader will see how this class set out to make a difference with the tools they had, and they did, but the most profound difference was made by this community on them.

This work occupies until now practically not researched relation of Czechoslovakia and Guatemala in the period of so called Guatemalan Revolution in the years 1944-1954. It also considers explaining the context of the international relations, especially of Guatemala, Mexico and the United States. The thesis in based above all on the until now unpublished archive material from the archives of Ministry of Foreign Relations of the Czech Republic, Secretary of Foreign Relations of Mexico, National Archive of the Czech Republic, and also from American Central Intelligence Agency. Czechoslovak relation with Guatemala was created already in the period in-between World Wars, when the small central European country became one of the greatest purchasers of the Guatemalan coffee. Exactly commercial interests of Czechoslovakia helped to create official diplomatic relations in this period, at which end was sealed in 1936 the commercial agreement and Guatemala bought in the same year arms in Czechoslovakia. After the end of the Second World War these relations were not renewed, however the new democratic regime of the president Arévalo had imminent interest to renew this relationship and as gesture of good will still recognized the commercial agreement from 1936, although in had not been actualized. In the same...