Claribel arrived in Worcester several years ago from a rural village in Guatemala. She brought with her marvelous weaving skills and now produces vividly colored bright scarf-like textiles on her back strap loom. She markets these through RAW. Claribel also stays in close contact with her younger sister back in Guatemala, who is learning to weave similar textiles. Claribel mentors her via Facetime. Claribel prefers thick cotton yarns to thinner ones -- always in the strongest, absolutely most attention-getting hues. She has recently graduated from public high school in the city; her foster family was a great support to her in her education and in her part-time jobs.
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Goodman, Frances Schaill. 1976. The Embroidery of Mexico and Guatemala. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Little, Walter. 2004. Outside of Social Movements: Dilemmas of Indigenous Handicrafts Vendors In Guatemala. American Ethnologist. Feb. 2004. 31 (1), 43-59.
Little, Walter and Patricia McAnany, eds. 2011. Textile Economies: Power and Value from the Local to the Transnational. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press, for the Society for Economic Anthropology.