Immigration of Maya K’iche’ Children to Antigua Guatemala

Here’s the story of Adam and Domingo, which is the typical story of many of the kids and teenagers of the high lands of Guatemala. Adam was trained in the loom to create the beautiful textiles of Quiché at his native San Antonio Ilotenango, a beautiful town with a lagoon at the center of it. “When the textile business failed, I moved to La Antigua Guatemala in search of work as other kids from my town,” Adam shared with me. At first, he worked selling chewing gun and other candies around Antigua Guatemala. It was okay, but he didn’t earn enough money with that kind of work, so he began shoe-shining. However, the other shoe shine kids told him the main square was their territory and he could not work there. Then, Adam became a ambulant shoe shiner and walk all over Antigua Guatemala and some of the villages. As luck would have it, some time later, a position was open as an ice cream vendor around the Central Park of Antigua Guatemala and that’s how he arrived at this corner of the world.

Adam’s story is very similar to Domingo’s and many of the shoe shine kids and ice cream vendors in Antigua Guatemala. As you can see, not all kids travel alone to the U.S., many of them look for job opportunities in other affluent towns and cities in Guatemala.

Here’s the most recent short film “Manos Sucias” shot at Antigua Guatemala’s Central Park.

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