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Using results of field research among Yucatec Maya in San Francisco, we compare two types of migrant associations: hometown associations (HTAs) and social service agencies, specifically in terms of the use and expression of ethnic identity. We argue that HTA leaders rely on a regional identity based largely on a sense of shared culture, which reproduces the dominant and widespread view of ethnic identity in Yucatán, namely that the Maya are not an indigenous people per se. In contrast, leaders of the social service agencies explicitly utilize indigenous identity in their programming and services. We maintain that the latter are reconceptualizing Maya identity, adopting a US multicultural framework that emphasizes ethnic difference as a basis for making claims for resources and rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the literature on indigenous political mobilization in Latin America is now quite extensive, relatively little has been published on why ethnic mobilization has not occurred in some indigenous regions. In this article, I examine a case where there is very little mobilization and organization around ethnic identity: Yucatan, Mexico. I begin with a political history of Yucatan, comparing it with and contrasting it to Chiapas. I then argue that ethnic mobilization in Yucatan is significantly limited for two main reasons: first, Maya peasants had so little relative autonomy under the corporatist regime (1940s-1980s) and official peasant leagues that they were constrained in using the experience garnered in these leagues for subsequent ethnic-based organization; and second, the social organizations and networks that provide activists and potential activists with the capacity to mobilize - namely, peasant leagues and the progressive Catholic Church - have not served as vehicles for leadership training and organization in Yucatan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]