Talks about how the survivors of Guatemala's violent unrest rebuilt their community in the face of political and economic challenges. Focusing on the village of Santa Maria Tzeja, this book describes the experiences of the survivors - both those who stayed behind in conditions of savage repression and those who fled to Mexico.

How did the opposing subcultures of fear (generated among those who stayed in Guatemala) and of education and human rights (experienced by those who took refuge in Mexico) coexist? Would the flood of international money sent to settle the refugees and fulfill the peace accords serve to promote participatory development or new forms of social control? How did survivors expand the space for democracy firmly grounded in human rights? How did they get beyond the grief and trauma that remained from the terror of the early eighties? Finally, the ultimate challenge, how did they work within conditions of extreme poverty to create a grassroots democracy in a militarized society? Clark Taylor is Associate Professor of Latin-American Studies in the College of Public and Community Service, University of Massachusetts at Boston. He is also chair of the board of the National Coordinating Office on Refugees, Returnees and Displaced of Guatemala (NCOORD), and was a founding member of Witness for Peace's Guatemala Committee. With his wife, he has been co-leader of a partnership project between his local church and the village of Santa Maria Tzeja for the past ten years.

Preface
Introduction
1. Torn by Terror
2. Reweaving the Pieces: Culture of Fear/Culture of Learning
3. The Contextual Loom: The Peace Accords, Civil Society, and the Powerful
4. Clash of Patterns: From Mexico and Guatemala
A Pictorial
5. Resources for Reweaving: The Perils of Development
6. Human Rights: The Color of Life
7. The Gray of Frozen Grief: Resolving the Trauma of Memory
8. Tearing Still? The Army in Peacetime
9. Weaving the Future: What Needs to Be Done and How To Get Involved
Appendixes
A. U.S. Groups Providing Resources on Guatemala and Support for the Peace Process
B. Chronology of Guatemalan History
C. Chronology of the Guatemalan Peace Process
Acronyms
Notes
Bibliography
Index