- Abstract/Acknowledgements/Table of Contents -

- Introduction - Chapters 1 | 2 |  3 |  4 |  5 |  6   - Conclusion -

- Appendices - Bibliography -

__________________________________________________________________

Margaret Lock (1993:141)

This chapter examines how notions of belonging and not belonging for Guatemalan immigrant men intersect with individual well-being. Belonging, I argue, should not be understood as another term for "identity," "home," or "community." Rather, belonging is an idiom for expressing well-being that is not necessarily connected with place but with shifting social contexts and the struggles and accomplishments of people’s everyday lives. Building on research in medical anthropology and gender studies (Adelson 2000; Becker 1997; Becker et al. 2000; Lock 1993; Thompson 1997; O’Nell 1996; Ong 1999; Queseda 1998; Yon 2000), I argue that "belonging" (pertenecer) or "not belonging" (no pertenecer) are idioms through which Guatemalan immigrant men narrate the lived experiences of displacement, migration and resettlement. By treating belonging as a process rather than as an attribute or category, I aim to illustrate how individual health is influenced by (not) belonging. I suggest that immigrant men’s bodies are potential sites of disruption, where a sense of not belonging in Canada may be manifested as nerves, alcoholism, depression, and several other forms of distress. This chapter’s discussion of the entanglements between health and identity, therefore, is part of a much larger effort to contribute to a medical anthropology of gendered idioms of emotional and bodily distress.

As I discussed in Chapter 1, studies of identity, diaspora and displacement have flourished within recent years, but scant attention has been paid to what belonging means to people in particular historical and social contexts. While "belonging" is frequently mentioned in the social science literature on identity, rarely is it problematized as a process that is shaped by social factors, such as family, gender, and economic well-being. My study aims to address this gap by analyzing the specific meanings attached to (not) belonging for Guatemalan immigrant men, and in so doing I hope to initiate debate on the relationship between belonging, gender and health for immigrants and refugees.

During the preparation and proposal writing stages of this project, I did not anticipate that belonging would be a prominent topic in my interviews with Guatemalan immigrant men. I wanted to talk to them about their lives and identities in Canada and Guatemala, and explore what relation, if any, their identities as men had with their individual well-being. What I quickly learned was that Guatemalan immigrant men attempt to make sense of displacement, exile and disruption by narrating their efforts to belong. What belonging means, of course, is shaped by the particular life trajectories of individual social actors. But narratives of belonging may also provide clues to the larger historical and social contexts that shape processes of displacement and exile.

By discussing the meanings attached to belonging, I pay special attention to how Guatemalan immigrant men embody processes of displacement, migration and resettlement. Men’s bodies, I argue, are sites for transformation. Guatemalan immigrant men (and women) may embody the processes of war, trauma, and family separation; but they also resist¾ through certain bodily practices¾ threats to their individual lives and identities as a result of exile. From an analytical perspective, I aim to provide an engaged critique of these lived experiences by weighing the contributions of other social analysts with the narratives of participants. By writing about men’s bodies, therefore, I align myself with other researchers who recognize that people act not as free social players but as individuals living within the contingencies and opportunities that everyday life has to offer.

Manuel and I sat in the living room of his downtown Toronto apartment sipping Cokes and complaining about the summer heat. It was Friday evening, and Manuel was winding down after a hard week at work. While his two young kids watched music videos and played with my tape recorder, we started to talk about his life in Canada since he had left Guatemala in 1992. I asked him what it was like to come to Canada as a refugee:

In the beginning, adapting to a new society is a big challenge for everyone. First of all, even though I had the opportunity to go to school and get some education in Guatemala, how to express your desires and anguishes in a different language is very difficult. How to create a network of friends is another challenge.

You think about your family, about your culture, and many things. It’s like a pain everyday. A friend of mine asked me one day, "Hey Manuel, are you going to stay here in Canada?" "Well, I’m here but I will never be here," I said. My heart and my feelings are down there in Guatemala. I can be here physically, but my emotions and my thoughts everyday are still in Guatemala.

Later in the interview I asked him how his health had been in Canada:

Here in Canada at the beginning I was very sick, every month or so, for many reasons. Maybe it was stress, I don’t know. In fact, I was on a diet for six months because my liver was getting bigger and bigger. I had a problem with accumulation of fat in my liver. And at that point in my life here in Canada I was drinking like crazy. You know, alcohol. It was affecting my health, my relationship with my family, and many things.

He went on to tell me that although he had tried several times to go on a diet and quit his drinking and smoking, it was his son, now eight years old, who motivated him to quit once and for all:

One day I went to the park with my children. My son was like three or three and half years old. He said, "When I grow up I wanna be like you. I wanna play soccer, I wanna play baseball like you." And he was very proud, you know. And then he said, "I wanna smoke like you, and I wanna drink beer like you."

And at that moment I felt really bad. And I thought, "OK, I’m gonna be a bad example for them. We are going to have enough problems here, why am I creating more problems? And so I should stop doing it."

The first week I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. My temper went crazy. It was very hard.

Manuel identifies difficulties with learning English and meeting friends as key struggles in his life since moving to Canada. He describes his sense of emotional detachment from Canada as a "pain everyday." As Manuel further explains, this pain also stems from an inability to pursue his aspirations and have a fulfilling job in Canada:

So it’s very difficult, you come here with your values, your political position and it’s like in one day, boom [snaps fingers], everything is lost. You start working in a new position here: washing dishes, cleaning, you know that kind of stuff. People treat you like you are completely ignorant, that you don’t know nothing. It’s painful, very painful.

This pain, I would argue, is at once a metaphor used to describe the transformations in Manuel’s life, as well as an embodied complaint which is manifested as stress, drinking, smoking, and nerves; health problems which have stemmed from "losing" his sense of self and having to rethink his role as a father. By theorizing Manuel’s gender identity as a fluid, contingent process characterized by change (Ong and Peletz 1995:1)¾ rather than as a concrete "thing" which he either has or does not have¾ we can begin to appreciate the ways in which Manuel attempts to be a responsible father and a healthy man.

Manuel’s narrative on the embodied pain of "not being here" resonates with Rolando’s, who left Guatemala in 1984 as a refugee.

I am between two countries. I don’t belong. I went there [Guatemala] twice already and I found everything different. It’s just not me anymore; it’s not what I left and how I left it. Things have changed dramatically.

I am used to being here in Canada, which I don’t like [chuckling]. Where do I belong? Where am I going? Am I going to stay or not? My dreams still are to work hard, get some money, and buy me a house down there. By that time my kids will be grown up already. They want to stay here in Canada, they do not want to move. So I will probably help them with their education, so they can go away to university. And I told my wife that if she wants to come with me she’s welcome. I am leaving after ten more years. I am outta here if God doesn’t give me a another reason to stay here. For me, in my own thinking, I am going back.

I asked him what he meant when he said he didn’t belong in Canada:

Well, see I left my country sixteen years ago. And so I’ve kind of "cut" my way of living down there. I came here, and I am growing here, and learning to belong and fit-in in a society that is very difficult, because an outsider is not really welcome. People don’t trust outsiders very much, you know. Even though I am very lucky with the trust of people around me, I feel that they want you to prove yourself first, how strong you are physically. That’s one of the standards they have: strength, physical stuff. Then there’s skills: How smart are you? How well you handle the language? How well you handle yourself in very extreme situations?

I then asked him if these experiences had affected his health in any way:

Oh yeah. For sure. In a big percentage, because when you feel like that you are afraid. You are afraid to do something or to get something for yourself, because most of the time they will reject you because they don’t understand you. Not all of the time of course, but most of the time people are rude and they don’t really pay attention to what you are trying to say. And as I don’t speak English very well, sometimes I get trapped in my own mumble because I am nervous.

The expectations related to being a man in Canada has been a source of fear and nerves for Rolando. Expected to "prove himself" to employers by demonstrating physical and mental stamina, Rolando encounters situations where his nerves get the better of him and he is unable to articulate himself clearly in a new language.

Belonging for these men may also resonate with the meanings attached to "home." Pablo doesn’t feel like he belongs in Canada (where he has lived since 1985) because he considers Guatemala home.

Home is over there for me. Now I know that I will have to stay here, I don’t know for how long. I don’t know if I will stay forever, now I don’t know. I like many things about Canada, I don’t have any complaints, but I don’t belong here. I know many people that say "Forget Guatemala, Canada is better." But my place is over there. I have always had a good job there. I’ve never been better here than as I was over there.

I asked Pablo how it felt not to belong in Canada:

In Guatemala, I feel that I am a person. Probably because I can explain myself clearly. Here when I am talking with somebody, they say "This guy has bad English," or "He is ignorant." The people are probably not thinking that but I feel like that. Even though everybody doesn’t want to admit it, you feel that many people are racist in certain ways against immigrants. That puts me down sometimes.

That’s why I feel like I’m somebody in Guatemala, and I don’t feel the same way here. I feel that I am stupid sometimes because I can’t explain my mind clearly.

By not belonging in Canada, Pablo feels that he is less of a person. Pablo suggests that employment, language capacity, and racism have affected his sense of belonging and well-being. Since Pablo no longer "feels like somebody," not belonging has had a negative impact on his sense of self-worth and emotional health.

Not all the men I spoke with felt like they didn’t belong. Lucas, for example, linked belonging to an ability to access the institutions of Canadian society, speak English, and find meaningful employment. He described¾ and joked¾ about what it means to belong:

Lucas: The most important thing for me is to know English, to communicate with other people, and to have a better understanding of the country I live in.

In contrast to several men who felt that they didn’t belong in Canada because they are immigrants, Raul stressed that being an immigrant in Canada actually contributed to his sense of belonging.

Raul: I feel nostalgia when I hear the marimba music. It brings back all my childhood memories, and I want to go back to Guatemala sometimes, but I think it is normal to feel this way . Then I come back to my reality and I feel better knowing I pay a house mortgage in Canada, and this makes me feel part of this country. I think I won’t go back to Guatemala.

In another way, Eduardo foregrounded his Maya identity and described how he felt like he is part of Canadian society by virtue of his indigenous background:

Eduardo: I respect this nation very much and feel I am a part of it. This country belongs to the native people since they were the first nation of this world, the first culture, and they have to suffer rejection the same way that I did. That’s why I feel part of Canada with all the rights I deserve.

Notions of belonging for Raul and Eduardo are linked to the people around them. Belonging, therefore, is relational; it may be grounded in a particular place but is also contingent on the formation of social relations and an individual’s entorno (environment; surrounding).

The men in my study articulated a sense of not belonging in a variety of ways. Some felt like they belonged nowhere; others believed that they will always belong in Guatemala, even after living for several years in Canada. Jose explained that language, race and ethnicity are important dimensions of belonging and aligned himself with people who speak his language rather than a particular place.

Sam: Do you feel like you belong here?

Jose: I’ve never felt like that. Even if you were born here and you speak good English, you will never feel that way. Because of your skin, your last name. You may speak good English and know everything about Canada, but your name is not "Jason." So you will never feel like that. That is what I’m teaching my kids to learn both languages, so if they don’t feel good here they can go back to my country.

Sam: What does it mean to belong somewhere?

Jose: I am a human being. As a human being my place is earth. That is the way I feel now. At the same time I don’t feel good when I am surrounded by people who don’t speak my language. I think that my place to do things is not here.

In another narrative, Orlando tells us that he feels comfortable and more secure in Canada but that he is not Canadian. Nor does he feel Guatemalan, and he is critical of a popular discourse which constructs Guatemalans as Mayan, both racially and ethnically. As a light-skinned Guatemalan, he struggles to understand how and where he belongs.

Sam: Do you feel part of this country?

Orlando: I believe I am part of this country but at the same time I feel that I don’t belong here 100%. In Guatemala I feel Guatemalan. I don’t feel like somebody will say to me, "Hey guy, get out of here, you’re not Guatemalan." In that sense I feel good. In another sense I feel insecure because there is no freedom there. I feel more secure here; I have more rights. I know that if somebody hits me here I can sue that person. In Guatemala, it’s different. But as a Guatemalan here among the Latin American people, they tend to look at the Guatemalan as Indian.

Some people see [my family] and they don’t believe that we are Guatemalan. They say that we don’t look like Guatemalans, because they think that in Guatemala most people are Indian. I like it and I don’t like it. I like it because they are saying that I am not Indian. But I don’t like because it’s not fair to the Indian people. I am not saying that I am better than them, but it’s kind of sweet and sour.

In a more concrete fashion, Enrique says that because he is "just another immigrant" in Canada he will always feel Guatemalan rather than Canadian and, therefore, does not feel like he belongs. This view contrasts with those of Raul and Eduardo in the previous section who felt that "immigrant-ness" or "indigenous-ness" reinforced their sense of belonging:

Enrique: I left Guatemala when I was fifteen years old. I went to live in Mexico. But I always have been with Guatemalan people, so my Guatemalan culture has always been with me. It is the same in Canada, I’m always around Guatemalan people. But sometimes you feel like you are another immigrant here. You feel like you are a citizen of this country for just a few moments. Then you realize that you are another immigrant, and that you are part of a particular culture, a Latin American culture. So I always feel Guatemalan.

Dreaming of Guatemala, Cesar insists that he does not belong in Canadian society¾ primarily because his family lives in Guatemala¾ and instead emphasizes that Guatemala is part of his mind and body:

I feel part of Guatemala first because I was born and I grew up there. All my family still lives there; my parents and my brothers. I only have my immediate family here. My daughters live in Toronto but my son lives in Montreal. I constantly dream about all my friends and family that I left in Guatemala and I realize that I don’t belong to this society. When I’m talking to you for example, I always think with a Guatemalan mentality and I begin to dream with my country and its life style.

I also want to highlight the relationship between language and belonging. For many men, belonging means to be able to speak English fluently. English language ability can have a major impact on the lived experience of resettlement. Like most immigrants and refugees to Canada in the post-war era, these men have struggled to learn English in order to find work, improve their education, and gain access to "mainstream" services and institutions in Canada. Problems with learning English were also linked to emotional problems such as loneliness, stress or anxiety:

Sam: Did you ever have problems with stress or nerves when you were in Guatemala?

Jaime: No. Over here there is a lot of loneliness, a lot of stress. People have nothing to do. I have more stress here than in Guatemala. But I don’t know why. Here you watch TV and that’s it. In Guatemala, you do something in the yard, play sports, go to the church, whatever. I think a big thing is the language. So many people are scared about speaking because they don’t speak good English.

Jaime emphasizes the boredom and fear that can result from poor English language skills for Guatemalan men in Toronto. Lack of English skills can also have lasting effects on individual social life. For example, although Augusto has improved his English since moving to Ontario from Quebec a few years ago, he talks about the ongoing effects of not being able to communicate in English during his early years in Canada:

Sam: What have been your positive or negative experiences living in Canada?

Augusto: Well the positive things are that I have developed my language skills a little bit. I speak English. On the other, I lost a lot of contacts with many people. I am not as sociable as I used to be. Probably because there was a long period of time when I couldn’t communicate with many people. So I just became very quiet.

I came here and I didn’t know many people. I just had a few friends from El Salvador in Quebec City. That was it.

When I went back to Guatemala in 1997 many people remarked that I was a lot more quiet than before. Less sociable. I think that is a very negative thing.

Ruben also highlighted the anxiety produced by not being confident to speak in English:

Sam: Have you had any problems with being anxious or having stress since you’ve been in Canada?

Ruben: Well, yes. You still feel anxious. The anxiety is there. You have to try and convince yourself that there is nothing left and then the anxiety is less persistent. You miss the weather, the people. You can’t have conversations with people, other than your wife. Because she is the only person you can talk to in Spanish. I couldn’t find anybody that spoke Spanish. It was really hard.

Having poor English language skills can also lead to feelings of inadequacy, stupidity and isolation:

Sam: What was it like to not know much about the society when you first came?

Orlando: You felt kinda stupid sometimes. Because you didn't know how to express yourself, you didn't know nothing about anything and you feel isolated.

Cesar also linked poor language skills to individual well-being. He suffered¾ and to some degree continues to suffer¾ from feelings of isolation and loneliness as a result of not being able to adequately express his thoughts and feelings in English.

The cause of my problems is living in an unknown society with different languages. When I lived in Quebec I didn’t know French, and now I live in Ontario and I don’t know English. The language is one of the big barriers.

At first glance these narratives on learning to speak English may seem to say little about belonging per se. But I would contend that language¾ in addition to feelings of being competent, resourceful and intelligent¾ are important ways in which belonging is measured for Guatemalan immigrant men. This is further linked, as we shall see, to the ability to fulfill aspirations and goals. Again, instead of linking belonging to a particular place, many men emphasize the ability to pursue dreams and goals as essential to their well-being and happiness.

The majority of the men who participated in my study were either working professionals or university students in Guatemala City before migrating to Canada. Several men talked about how migration and resettlement has caused an "interruption" in their career and educational plans. Many (though not all) of the hopes and dreams of these men were disrupted as they were forcibly displaced from their communities in Guatemala. Due to a wide range of factors including the lack of recognition of foreign credentials by Canadian companies and public services, many of these men have been unable to continue to pursue these goals in Canada. Ernesto, for example, spoke generally about the effects of displacement on Guatemalans, but phrased the issue in terms of "belonging":

Ernesto: The hopes and dreams of Guatemalans were interrupted. They left their country and went to a country that doesn’t belong to them. Because when they were born they didn’t think they would be in that place, at that time, with those people.

Talking about his struggles with health, Jaime also felt that not being able to build the kind of future he had envisioned in Guatemala was affecting his emotional health in Canada:

Sam: How do you deal with your health problems?

Jaime: I deal with it by myself. My family is a religious family. When you have a tough situation it is really hard to believe in God. But I’m trying to pray. Because I am frustrated. I came to Canada to try and do something and be somebody. Not to drink, but to be somebody else. Now that I am married I have to be somebody in the future.

In a long and passionate description of his attempts to find work and "fit-in" in Canadian society, Cesar explained his lack of belonging as a result of an interrupted career path:

Another difficulty is that you don’t have the Canadian experience when you are looking for a job. This is a very funny and sad situation because you just arrive to this country with the similar experience from back home, and they don’t consider it because we are not from Canada. If a person has been working on a farm planting trees for three or four years, and the same person comes to Canada and applies for the same job, they should consider his previous experience but they always say you need the "Canadian experience". I think this is a way of exploitation and they make people feel very stupid. I worked for twenty years in a telephone company and when I went to fill out an application for Bell they told me that my experience didn’t count because it wasn’t from Canada. I really want to adjust to this society but it is very difficult and I am still psychologically affected by all these situations.

Cesar talks about the frustration he has experienced with the labour market in Canada. He argues that he has been exploited because his credentials have not been honored in Canada. This in turn has influenced his sense of belonging and his psychological well-being.

Ana

Ana’s comment about return migration forced me to think about the role gender may play in shaping migration flows. Why might Guatemalan men want to return to Guatemala more than women, as Ana suggests? Although only a small handful of participants explicitly discussed men’s and women’s views toward return migration, Ana’s comment did resonate with some of my findings¾ as well as the conclusions of cultural psychiatrist Marlinda Freire (1995) in her study of gender and migration among Latin American refugees in Toronto¾ on the different health experiences of Guatemalan immigrant men and women. Many of these men and women agreed that men have more difficulty salir adelante ("moving on"; "getting ahead") than women. Although individual health and resettlement experiences are diverse, and although both men and women experience health problems since migrating to Canada, men do seem to have greater problems dealing with or recovering from emotional distress. By reflecting on return migration, these men provide a fascinating glimpse at how a sense of belonging influences their everyday lives.

Ernesto: I feel now that I belong to nowhere. Two years ago I went to Guatemala, and the people that knew that I live here [in Canada] no longer saw me as a Guatemalan. And I too saw Guatemalans as totally differently than me. However, I still tell myself that they are my people. It seems to me that I don’t belong to them anymore and they don’t belong to me anymore. They no longer see me as a Guatemalan. I know that I am still linked with them. There is a big connection.

But being here, you are a stranger still. They don’t really see you as Canadian. So we aren’t accepted like we belong to society. We are seen as immigrants. And as immigrants we are strangers, not Canadians. And so you don’t belong anywhere.

Ernesto’s visit to Guatemala two years ago has had an obvious impact on his sense of belonging. His experiences in Guatemala forced him to rethink his own ethnic identity and reflect on his life in Canada. While the notion of place is an important part of articulating this sense of (not) belonging, the people around him are a more salient site for identity formation.

Augusto also talked about how "strange" it was to visit Guatemala after living in Canada for five years.

Sam: What was it like to go back to Guatemala?

Augusto: Very strange. I guess I could see things much better than I saw them before. More clearly. I learned to appreciate more what I have here. Even though I don’t feel completely Canadian, I think I appreciate a lot more what I have in this place. I didn’t want to stay there. I didn’t feel at home anymore. It was a very strange situation. All my friends were married, they had children. I felt out of place. Out of context. I felt like I wasn’t from there anymore.

Ruben’s return visit to Guatemala was particularly traumatic. Called "gringos" by the police in his own neighborhood, Ruben and his brother were harassed and treated like foreigners:

Sam: Have you ever been back to Guatemala?

Ruben: Yes. The first time was awful. It was awful because we got involved in an incident the second day we arrived. The police came along in unmarked cars, and my brother and I were out jogging. And I don’t know if they were after us or somebody else, but they stopped us, really brutally. They jumped out of the car, they pointed pistols at us. They put us on to the ground, and they were screaming. And I thought to myself, "This is my day." But no, they were looking for someone else. But they called us "gringos" because they couldn’t read our identification cards (in English). They couldn’t distinguish between Canadians and Americans. That was our luck.

Sam: Did you feel like a gringo when you were there?

Ruben: No. But because they couldn’t understand English, we were forced to get somebody to help us with our passports. All the people in the streets were looking at us. It was an awful feeling. So after that day we didn’t go back to the capital until the very, very end of our trip.

Although Jose has not returned to Guatemala¾ for fear of harassment and lack of safety¾ he has given it some thought. He articulates a sense of not belonging through the metaphor of "emptiness." Because he would not be able to pursue his aspirations in Guatemala, he does not want to return to his country of birth. He would feel "empty,’ he explains. He feels a similar sense of emptiness in Canada because he cannot speak good English and is discriminated against on the basis of his skin color.

Jose: I can’t go back to my country. I can’t feel safe in my country. Because when I came here the [Canadian] government asked for photographs of me. They asked for criminal records. I am sure that both governments have my records. I have not done anything, you know.

Sam: Do you think about Guatemala now?

Jose: Yeah. I think I feel like that is because we don’t see any change in the government. We don’t see any will on the part of the government to change anything. The bishop that was killed one year ago [Juan Gerardi], nothing has been done to find the killer. How can you be safe and want to go back to your country? Because I am sure that if I go back to my country, I am not going to stay there. I will feel empty if I go to Guatemala.

Echoing Ana’s comment at the beginning of this section¾ that Guatemalan immigrant men tend to want to return to Guatemala more than women because men have more difficulty salir adelante in Canada¾ Cesar narrates his struggle to belong in Canada and to improve his life. He reminisces about having a better job in Guatemala and hints at an interest to return to this country, even though his wife and daughters have no interest in leaving Canada:

Cesar: I think my life has been going in two directions and my mind has developed a lot of sides. I think I’m sixty per cent Guatemalan and forty per cent Canadian. I am very thankful to this country because it rescued me, it saved my life and it also gave me all kinds of support: psychological and physical. My family (daughters, wife) don’t want to go back to Guatemala even though we had a better economic situation there. We live a poor life here and we don’t have too many material things. If we had been living in my country all my children would have good jobs and positions, but our reality in Canada is very different because we have a very poor life.

I have learned how to clean washrooms and I have performed all kinds of jobs. I have a lot of potential but I don’t know why I’m not able to find a job that I like. These are my reasons for considering myself more Guatemalan than Canadian.

A meaningful and well-paying job figures strongly in Cesar’s narrative on belonging. He is considering returning to Guatemala, but realizes that he would be alone. His wife and children have no interest in leaving Canada, and he is forced to reconcile his role as husband and father in this decision. Clearly, meaningful employment is an important idiom through which Cesar expresses belonging. His liminal status as a less well-paid worker in Canada has an impact on his well-being and sense of fulfillment.

This chapter has aimed to show that belonging should not be understood as another term for "identity," "home," or "community." My goal has been to demonstrate that belonging is an idiom for expressing well-being, and that belonging is not necessarily connected with place. Moreover, while feelings of not belonging may negatively impact individual health¾ in the form of weight gain, psychological stress, anxiety or loneliness¾ these men also actively counteract not belongingness by learning English, establishing and securing a strong sense of family life, and finding meaningful employment. Guatemalan immigrant men do strive to belong, but I have paid less attention to where they belong than to how they live and embody the process of belonging. Asking the question of where, in my view, risks reproducing dominant notions of identities and spaces as rigid, fixed categories¾ a point of view that continues to prevail in conventional discourses on immigration policy. Asking where rather than how also potentially ignores the ways in which immigrants and refugees renegotiate their identities as a result of displacement, migration and resettlement.

The struggles of Guatemalan immigrant men to belong affects their bodily well-being. In theoretical terms, medical anthropologist Margaret Lock has argued that the body is a site of belonging (1993:141). That is, the body is a signifier of an individual’s place in a particular time and space; is at once naturally and culturally produced (Scheper-Hughes and Lock 1987:7); and can be an "active forum" for the expression of dissent or loss (Lock 1993:141). The narratives of Guatemalan immigrant men in this chapter¾ in which they retell their identities and bodies in order to make sense of the recent transformations in their lives¾ suggest that the body can also be a site and an expression of not belonging, of losing a sense of selfhood, as well as of distress and illness. For Manuel, the challenges of finding work and learning English led to problems with his weight and drinking, which in turn forced him to set an example as a man to his son. Rolando’s efforts to "fit-in" by proving himself to employers through physical labor illustrates anthropologist Matthew Gutmann’s point that the physical body features prominently in the meanings of being a Latino man (1996:222). The ability to perform physical tasks, I would argue, is also an expression of belonging.

In closing, this chapter has aimed to sketch some of the lived experiences of Guatemalan immigrant men in Toronto, and the entanglements between these experiences and their individual health. For many men, a sense of not belonging in Canada is causes a disruption in their health status and in what it means to be a man. Fear, stress, depression, drinking, smoking, nerves, and bodily aches and pains are at once lived experiences of ill health and commentaries on their social and economic positions in Canada. This chapter provides a preliminary discussion of those gendered practices that lead to pathology as well as health and healing. The next chapter outlines the particular health beliefs and practices of these men, and suggests ways in which gender shapes health experiences and help-seeking behavior.

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- Abstract/Acknowledgements/Table of Contents -

- Introduction - Chapters 1 | 2 |  3 |  4 |  5 |  6   - Conclusion -

- Appendices - Bibliography -