In recent decades, as Indigenous communities in Mexico and Guatemala have faced new levels of economic precarity and violence, thousands of Indigenous migrants have made New York City their home. Though each Indigenous group comes with its own language, culture, cuisine, and religious and oral history traditions, what many of them share is an idea of reciprocity and mutual support—“giving, returning, and receiving”—as a social organizing system. These concepts and practices are embodied in words and
phrases like tequio, faena, la mano vuelta, mayordomías, and compadrazgo, expressions that have no direct translation in English but that all imply an individual’s responsibilities to the collective and the obligations that come with being part of a community. Over the course of the pandemic, I have been documenting the ways these traditional practices…
