house looks empty. The large room seems expansive, flanked by only a set of small couches. In

the corner, a TV, DVD player, and stereo sit atop a rickety wooden table. The voices of Maria,

her elderly grandmother, two teenage sons, and niece, as well as the sounds of mongrel dogs,

echo against the bare walls. Maria complains that the house doesn't have furniture, that there is

more to be done: she laments that the only way to fill the emptiness is to return to the United

States.

 Maria's complaints are many. She recently lost thousands of dollars paying for her eldest

son's unsuccessful attempt to cross the border. The $600 she receives monthly from her ex-

husband will never pay to furnish the house or to finance a small business. The land her house

sits on is in her son's name, and he has become more dominating with time, even refusing to

allow her to bring home a new boyfriend. In the end, she complains that she misses Atlanta.

There she left a nice guy and a job that paid her in dollars. While she has many love interests in

Pinula, she must see them in private by sneaking off to meet her boyfriends in the city of Jalapa,

without the community's (or especially her son's) disapproval. Even though she no longer lives

near the watchful eye of her in-laws and her house sits at the edge of town, it seems small and

oppressive. Maria now has visions of a new future. Her large house, a life-long dream, suffocates

her, its emptiness reflecting the vacancy in her heart. Ironically, the realization of her concrete

dream has exposed an abstract need. What will she search for next?

 Research Questions

 At the beginning of this project I asked four fundamental questions about how

transnational migration affects gender, ethnic relations, and local development. These central

inquiries, informed by my research in Guatemala and transnational migration, led to four

hypotheses.