In Guatemala this traditional costume is very common in my mountain country that women wear. In San Francisco La Unión, women use a white blanket güipil, on the neck and sleeves as decoration, a black ribbon. The white means the purity of the woman and the black means mourning for our ancestors. They have a green cut combined with black and white jaspers. Green represents the nature that surrounds the municipality, white represents the color of the clouds and black represents the darkness of the night. They wear a red sash that represents the blood they our ancestors shed. In her hair she wears a colored ribbon that represents the color of the rainbow.  On her feet she wears a pair of leather sandals. On her shoulder she wears a coat with green and purple stripes with black and white jaspers and the women use it in activities to celebrate patron saint festivities and also in activities to represent candidates, also to represent our municipality and the Mayan documentary. It is also woven by an electric machine and it is a hand-made machine and one of the reasons why I wrote about this suit is because of the way the Mayans wove and made it. It is great, this suit teaches me how my ancestors did it. Their use of the same one makes me remember at the time that I also used this suit after emigrating to the United States, it was one of the very beautiful moments when representing my dear municipality and having been part of this clothing that represents me as a Mayan woman.

– M.H

Relationship:  Im/migrant Im/migrant