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Dr. Thomas
Aleto Ph.D. University of Illinois email: aleto@bloomu.edu |
| Interests: Mesoamerican and South American archaeology; modern cultures of Mexico and South America; folk art; ritual; visual anthropology. |
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What interested you in Anthropology?
"I took a bus
trip to Mexico with my Spanish class after my freshman year of high school. It
was a transformative experience; something profound happened to me when I
crossed the Rio Grande. Everything about Mexico fascinated me: the landscape,
the people, the history, the archaeology. I knew that I had to return soon. I
continued to study Spanish in high school, and while a sophomore at the
University of Notre Dame I lived and studied in Mexico City. I spent as much
time as possible away from school that year, taking advantage of long weekends
and playing hooky to visit the ruined archaeological sites of the Aztec, Maya,
Teotihuacan and the many other prehistoric civilizations of Mexico. When I
returned to Notre Dame, I changed my major from Business Administration to
Anthropology.
I attended graduate school at the University of
Illinois--Urbana-Champaign with the hope of conducting research in Mexico.
However, the politics of the late 1970s made it difficult for foreigners to get
excavation permits in Mexico. Instead, I went to Ecuador, where I spent the
early 1980s conducting archaeological research. Since coming to Bloomsburg
University in 1987, I have shifted my research interests back to my first love,
Mexico. However, I have directed my attention toward the living indigenous
peoples of the country, who are the modern descendants of the prehistoric
cultures that initially captured my attention. Since the early 1990s I have
traveled to the most isolated Indian communities where people still make and
wear traditional textiles, documenting the creative process, collecting examples
of their disappearing craft and capturing photographic portraits of the
artists."