Racial Worldview

 When I was living among migrants in Boston, I often heard the term indio and Ladino but I

did not understand the social relationships between Pinultecos in Boston. Since I could not yet

see people through a Guatemalan racial worldview, specifically the racial order according to

local Pinualtecos, I failed to grasp the ethnic differences that were so clear to them. Once I lived

in Pinula, I was able to begin to understand how people perceived and constructed race. It was

hard at first, trying to decipher who was considered Indian, Ladino, more Ladino, and less

Ladino. It also took learning the Pinula's genealogies to understand how people "see" race as

well. As explained further in chapter 3, there are specific phenotypes, clothing, speech patterns,

and material possessions that can place someone in a specific racial group, but it was people's

perceptions of race based on hypodescent and a detailed knowledge of family genealogies that

cemented one's identity. This was the hardest for me to grasp, since I didn't always know

people's ancestry.

 Some of the best learning experiences for me were the funerals. Attendance at a funeral

signified more than just mere acquaintance. As it turned out, family and friends attend funerals

but so do family members that are no reconocido (illegitimate, unrecognized). For example, I

was at an Indian woman's funeral when many prestigious Ladinos arrived. In whispers between

Hail Marys, women explained that the deceased woman was the great-granddaughter of a Ladino

man who had come from Honduras at the turn-of-the-century-and fathered children from five

different women: two women were Ladinos with good last names (Spanish), two were

considered mixed Ladino, and the last was pura (pure), an Indian woman. Five families in the

community are descendents of this man and represent three different ethnic categories: two

families are considered white and very Ladino, another two (my husband's family) are

considered mixed Ladino, and one family (from the woman who had just passed away) was