Indian. This story and others like them helped me understand the rules and exceptions of

hypodescent, enabling me to ask the right questions about perceptions of blood, descent,

phenotypes, and racially-attributed behaviors.

Gender

 My role as the wife of a Guatemalan man and return migrant placed me in a special

situation in the context of relating to other women in the community. Living in a small town, it

was almost impossible to hide any secrets from the community: it became apparent to many that

there was conflict between me, my mother-in-law, and my husband. Many women had

experienced similar situations, living with an overbearing and metida (nosy) mothers-in-law who

sided with her son. To make matters worse, I was an Americana and obviously not capable of

spending my days as a typical wife, working full-time to wash clothes and prepare food. While

this didn't seem to bother my husband, it did bother my mother-in-law, even though she

appeared to understand that I came to the town to work.

 My in-laws no longer lived in the town; they had rented their country home for the past

thirty years while they lived in the capital city, but that didn't stop them from moving in with us

when we decided to rent their house in Pinula. I was under the naive perception that since I was

renting their home and they lived in the city, that their initial stay was temporary. I was wrong.

At the time, I thought their presence was intrusive and I was concerned that they would

negatively influence my visitor's interactions, since I would be in front of my Ladino in-laws.

This was true. But I also had the unique experience of being a daughter-in-law and wife in

Guatemala, battling over control of my household and relationship with my husband. I quickly

learned to sympathize with my informant's own battles with their in-laws and husbands. The

objectivity I was able to maintain was based in the knowledge that my situation would not be

permanent and one day soon I would return to the United States. On the other hand, there were