13 posts tagged “sociopoliticoeconomics”

It’s awkward at school when you’re on the verge of being late for class, or when you’re driving to work and some moralizer on Longwood Trace insists on going 29 in a 30 and not even 1mph over, forcing you to go several under. You don’t want to be that asshole who speeds past, but you’re in a hurry! So, you just make your way through in the least rude manner as possible, and hope they don’t remember, don’t know you, or don’t care.

                It’s a little tougher here just to plow through a group of people on a narrow and high sidewalk. In addition to the physical difficulty, there is also the subtle implication of a not-so-distant past. Less than ten years ago, San Cristobol citizens of indigenous ancestry were not permitted to walk on the sidewalks- they had to walk in the street instead. I, as a result, definitely don’t want to be the one they clear the way for. I usually slip into the street as just another rude American.

                I have had few discussions about racism in Mexico. In fact, the only person willing to admit that it exists has been Hugo. The topic has the same status as it does in the United States- it is ignored, perpetuated secretly, or people pretend like it doesn’t exist anymore because some minor reconciliation in a history of persecution makes things better.  I remember having a discussion with one of my co-workers, who insisted that black people were no longer at a disadvantage in our country and that modern racism was just a fiction to perpetuate white guilt and suck more out of the system.  He said, “We gave them the right to vote, they can sit in front of the bus, they can eat my tax dollars in food stamps and get into college preferentially over me, what else do they want?”

                Interestingly, a similar attitude exists here in Mexico. “No hay racismo.” I hear it over and over again. Classism, everyone is willing to admit to, though. While I’ll be the first one to target class status as the best predictor of future success, it still remains that it is easier to be a white impoverished person, or a ladino impoverished person, than an ethnic or indigenous one. Just because Chamulans can feel free to walk on the sidewalk doesn’t mean the issue has been put to rest.  The evidence for this is always easy to pick out in hiring decisions. According to Hugo, darker skin, Mayan names- these things destine you to be a laborer who spends the day in the sun. In the United States, a black man is more disproportionately and statistically significantly more likely to be asked about his punctuality than a white man with the same qualifications. Imagine how much harder it must be for someone to get a job who citizenship or loyalty is up for debate. Some of the things I have witnessed and heard, especially after 9/11 and in the heat of the immigration debate make my absent soul sick.

                While I have been disappointed to miss the primary season, complete with crappy CNN commentary, out-of-context soundbites and repeated, finger-pointing, substanceless discussions about racism no one wants to admit to, I don’t feel like I have entirely missed out on the experience. I have just been living in a different spectrum of it- a more nascent, less violent version of what my mom grew up, starring Commandante Marco as a socialist, but silent Martin Luther King with Mexican radio as my source instead of a black  and white or Technicolor television. We’re a long way from Darfur, where racial violence is explicit, but we’re still far from resolving the problem. Continuing to proclaim that “No hay racism” only perpetuates it. You can turn on CNN and see that for yourself if you don’t believe me. I have a nice view from my window.

Woo is the term I use for non-traditional medicine. It is not necessary disrespectful, but it is meant to imply the fragile nature of its credibility.  Today, I was given a woo treatment for my not-so-mysterious illness. Yesterday morning, I started to feel the onset the sporadic, violent and short-lived Montezuma’s revenge that I have been experiencing the entire trip. By mid-evening, it was near intolerable, especially after suffering through what would have otherwise been an enjoyable birthday party for my host families grandmother/mother. More on that later. By the time I went to sleep, I had also acquired significant nausea, a headache, and disorientation. In the early morning, these last three symptoms were going strong and I decided to scar my otherwise perfect attendance to avoid throwing up in class, assuming the disorientation and the headache allowed me to pay attention. At this point, my host mother was kind and gave me tea. I think manzanilla means chamomile, but the tea didn’t remotely resemble it so who knows. Either way, tea makes me feel better whether or not there is any scientific basis. When I woke up several hours later, I was given watery oatmeal in a mug, several pieces of bread and told these two would make me feel better. Since I no longer felt like I was going to throw up and my blood sugar was low, I just went with it. What I wasn’t so keen on but accepted as an act of sincere desire to make me feel better on their part, was the egg.

                Apparently, I felt strange because a lot of eyes were on my yesterday at the party. It’s true- I got a lot of attention. It’s hard for my blond hair not to stick out in a sea of stark black, not to mention I was also the only non-kin in the room. The way to resolve this was to take the illness or the eyes out of me with an egg. My host mother rubbed it all over my head, my chest and my stomach to “suck out” what was bad. I was grateful because I thought she was going to crack it in my hair! Then she cracked the egg in water, and some of the egg white streamed to the top- that was my illness. She told me by mid-afternoon, they would try again and it wouldn’t be there because I would feel better.

                I’ll be really honest, my family is fairly conservative, at least in their Catholic beliefs and I didn’t expect this from them. When she told me the egg would take the ojos away from me, I thought she was pulling my leg. While I have been subject to a couple of “home-remedies” for illnesses by my host families here in Mexico, and even at home, these don’t necessarily arise my suspicion because they are usually some sort of food or drink item associated with comfort. When you’re sick, whether or not you associate that particular thing with comfort, if you think it will make you feel better, you go for it. This egg business is a little stranger- the suspicion behind it makes it categorically different than dry toast, watery oatmeal and manzanilla tea.  Just as long as it doesn’t become a substitute for real medical care, which I didn’t need, I suppose there is no harm in it. If anything, it made them feel better, and I experienced one of their family traditions. Me? I still feel like crap, but I’ll be able to go to class tomorrow.

    A couple days ago, we visited the twin towns of Chamula and Zinacantan. While they are ethnically similar, they have diverged into two very different and distinct towns, despite the few miles that separate them. Their divergence occurs with a signal event during the conquest: to cooperate, or to resist.

                Chamula is a fairly large town of resisters who specialize in wool production. Although as Chamula Indian may not be Catholic, and in fact are considerably likely to be Evangelical Protestant,, to live in Chamula, as a Chamulan, you must be a member of their Catholic Church with its idiosyncratic hierarchies and traditions. While I am sure there is more to it than just the church, the main divergence for me, appeared there.  The outside is colorfully decorated with various Mayan symbols. Inside the church, the saints line the walls in boxes decorated with symbolic flowers and tokens. There are no pews- instead, there are tables with candles on them, each with a different meaning according to their color. When the candles have taken over the tables, people pray on the floor, with specific numbers and colors of candles according to their prayer surrounded by a thick layer of pine needles that covers the church floor. Sometimes, healers with accompany them, or give them directions on how to cure an illness in the family, or misfortune. I saw one woman swinging a bag of eggs over the candles she had placed on the floor.

                In addition to their different church customs, the Chamulans also have a mayordomos. To be a mayordomo is a great honor, because it is indicative of the fact that the elected person is a spiritual leader in the community.  When you are chosen, you are responsible for buying all of the drinks and food for every major celebration in the community: weddings, baptisms, funerals, etc. They, like the rest of the Chamulans, also have a distinct costume, which I have put into a picture to the left. The traditional clothing of a Chamulan is usually a white or black wood tunic for men, and for a women, a woolen black skirt and a white blouse. I have seen very few Chamulan women wearing  their hair in anything other than braids, although I have seen girls running around with their hair behind them.

                Zinacantan means “Land of Bats” in the Nauhatl language of the Aztecs with whom they traded extensively with in pre-Colombian times. When the Spanish arrived, they were more gracious to their invaders than the Chamulans, and have thus acquired a better reputation that continues today. To call someone a “Zinacantan” means nothing, but calling someone a “Chamulan” is a racial slur. Through my eyes, the people of Zinacantan dress similiarly to the people of Chamula, only they tend to appear more wealthy because of their more colorful clothing. Traditionally, the men wear a more colorful tunic and the women wear indigo skirts, a white blouse and/or an indigo shawl embroidered with elaborate flowers. This is because the Zincantans are responsible for a lot of the tropical flowers shipped throughout surrounding Mexican states and the flowers have thus became important to their culture as their means of prosperity.

                While the Zinacantans have adapted Catholicism similarly to the Chamulans, they are less notable because they just seem happier. Maybe it’s because no one mentioned mandatory expulsion if they abandoned their specific brand of Catholicism? Perhaps it because they seemed to have means of acquiring money other than farming on poor land and hawking goods to the tourists? For me, although I was exposed to more intimate aspects of their lives- a traditional Zinacantan house, weaving of their clothing, delicious tortillas filled with ground pumpkin seed…they struck me less. I was interested, but I found my curiousity sparked more by the people who were more often sticking their hands, empty or full of pulseras in my face while I was sitting down at a restaurant.

If the discussion of how civilization began isn’t at the head of the line when history class begins, it’s definitely somewhere in the front. This proved to be just as true in Mayan class as it has in Mr. Dennis’ Simpsons-riddled U.S. History. This discussion is inextricable from the rise of agriculture, usually the domestication of corn. This leap is the modern “discovery of fire,” because it permitted us to settle into groups and perpetuate a more extreme division of labor that characterizes our society today. It should be no surprise, then, that corn, or maize, would continue to be one of the integral aspects of our society more than 7,000 years later. In the U.S., our dependency on corn is staggering, and the situation, compounded by the effects of globalization, is no different here in Mexico, or in any other place in the Americas.

The rise of corn in Mexico began with the nixmal process which combined lime and corn to create a complete set of amino acids and prevented protein deficiency. It’s not small wonder that these are the two most prevalent food items in Mexico, and the tortillas (originally tamales) they are made into and lime are served with every meal, whether you feel that they are necessary or not. In fact, I have never seen a flour tortilla in Mexico. Instead of the dry, super-processed pieces of wheat-derived cardboard I have grown accustomed to in Tex-Mex restaurants, I have been treated to smooth, soft corn tortillas. They may  have been had pressed in my view by a tortilla maker or pressed through a machine owned q small tiendas. Either way, they are delicious, and probably have fewer food miles and less processing than anything we can get at home because they are so pervasive. It pays to make them locally, especially in San Cristobol.

In addition to tortillas, corn is on almost every street corner in one of three forms: elotes y esquinas (most common), elote ice cream, or popcorn (least common). In fact, roaming around near the Mercado de Artesanias and Dulces last night, I encountered the corn trifecta. The elote is basically corn on the cob, and prepared the way my host family likes it, slathered in mayonnaise instead of butter, rolled in cheese and given a generous squirt of chile. While I am not a particularly big fan of this preparation (mayonnaise!!), I am a big fan of elote ice cream, which puts vanilla to shame, just as long as it isn’t textured with corn kernels.

Unfortunately, corn production in Mexico is rife with strikes for political oppression and environmental damage. The primary mode of agriculture here is slash and burn and while yields twice the land use here in Chiapas than in the Yucatan, it comes at the cost of releasing considerable amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and the destruction of forests. Moreover, the milpa farmers are traditionally poor indigenous Indians, who are oppressed through a variety of ways, not in the least the eminent-domain seizure of their land.  These farmers are also to struggle to keep up with cheap imports from the United States, fueled by NAFTA, and they are forced to sell their crop, non-genetically modified, at costs that approach exploitation. They are, fortunately, not defenseless- they have Zapatistas at their back, for better or worse.

NAFTA does not supply our only impact on Mexican corn culture. The entirety of own corn culture is so monolithic as to be entitled a cornarchy by food activists, such as myself. I challenge anyone who doesn’t believe me to find me a processed food item in the interior of the grocery store, freezer shelves included, that contains no remnants of corn. Even if you find something, the time it takes is convincing of how pervasive it is. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is particularly ubiquitous in processed foods, and its these foods that are shipped globally- things like soda, candy, bread (I’m not talking about pastries), and “just-add water” meals, among many, many other items.

Corn isn’t just food for people, though. In the U.S., there are four routes for corn to go: food for people, food for cows, ethanol and exports. Consider the environmental and economic impact of thousands of industrial corn farms that are producing feed for cows, who in turn produce their own devastating impact in terms of worker treatment, waste and its chemical components that infiltrate our water supply, and the carbon byproducts of cows (such as gas) that contribute to global warming.  Farming for ethanol is just as damaging. Just because ethanol is sustainable in the sense that we can grow it in the form of corn, does not mean it is environmentally friendly- it is a carbon-based fuel just like petroleum. These non-food producing fields are taking up valuable space that could be used for grass-fed, free-range livestock, that don’t need to be pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics, or pushed through a factory farm, and also for the fruits and vegetables that could reduce our national health problems and increase our diet diversity.  Finally, we arrive back at the problem of exports- individual milpa farmers, just like domestic farmers, cannot compete with industrial monocultures. And you can’t discount the cost of transport for all of these corn-derived products any more than any other resource.

If you’ll permit me to continue to make a political statement about both of our cultures dependency on corn, it’s this: everything in moderation. While some aspects of our corn-dominated societies are not inherently damaging, and can even be tasty, our dependency is just as toxic as our dependency on oil. When I came to Mexico, I naively expected to participate in a different kind of food economy than we have at home. While I have been privileged, especially here in San Cristobol, to more locally-produced food, the effects of globalization are already taking a toll here as they have in Merida. The Zapatistas can only keep Wal-Mart away for so long.

We woke up at 6:30am yesterday to get on the bus at Lacanja before 8:00, and then spent the rest of the day driving, with a short and very pretty break outside of Palenque after we dropped Rebecca off at the bus station there. We finally arrived to San Cristobol around 8:00pm to meet our host families and embark on a mini-adventure for our suitcases. While I fully expected for the real fun to begin then, in fact, there were quite a few interesting sites along the way.

Outside of Palenque, when we stopped for lunch which I felt strange eating because of all the Dramamine in my sister, we spent some time watching a very large waterfall while Hugo arranged one last meal for us. While the other waterfalls we have seen were beautiful and impressive in their own right, size does matter, and as a result, this one has trumped them all.

 Afterwards, we were driving through nothing but highland country, and as a result, we were treated to Zapatista propaganda, despite the military presence that occasionally stopped us to inspect our luggage. The letters EZLN were occasionally painted on houses, often in faded letters. Once, I saw a restaurant named “Cocinera Zapatista.”  Most exciting, however, was probably a small town center with a name I can’t recall. There was a sign that read “Autonomous Province of the Zapatistas.”  Additionally, the school was emblazoned with the EZN, decorated with men carrying arms and wearing a ninja-like costume with a red band o n their foreheads. I wish I had my camera ready when we passed by.

When we arrived, we filed off the bus with everything we brought on it and met our host families in the language institute. I don’t have  a roommate because I have chosen to live alone, but I’m sure it’s going to be fine despite my initial trepidation about it. Already, I feel like my Spanish is improving because my host family makes an effort to gently correct me when I say things like “corporacion” instead of “corporativo,” or when my verb conjugation is a little off. They also have two children, which are fortunately pretty close to my age so I can foresee myself not wanting to kill them like I might be inclined to do with say, seven-year-olds. The oldest girl is nineteen, she goes to college is Tuxtla, the capital city not far from here, and she is studying tourism. Unfortunately, she is only home on the weekends because she lives at the university during the week. The youngest girl is fifteen, and reminds me a little bit of my sister Katie. I don’t feel like we have a lot in common, but because we will probably be spending some time together in the house, I’m sure we will find something

On a final note, before I went to work on finishing my Maya blogs and the glyph project last night, I, of course was stupid and brought up the Zapatistas because I want to know about them. It wasn’t so stupid after all because the family was happy to oblige and give me their perspective on them. Look for a post on what I have learned once I can do some outside research, and probably something about political tourism as well.

To be honest, I don’t know enough about the political history of Chiapas to be afraid of what many may consider an “unstable” region. I know that there are Zapatista rebels with the notation EZN, that they are in some way related to the Mayan cause of independence, they have some association with narcos, be it contrived or legitimate, and that the rebels are the reason the Mexicans at border control were more concerned with the (firework) mortar launcher in the back of Brad’s car than any of the other somewhat suspicious features of it- weapons trafficking into the country is a concern. As a result, I do not fear being in Chiapas anymore than Oklahoma, and driving into it was only novel because it is a foreign state.

Today, as we’re sitting down waiting for everyone to finish looking through the museum, Hugo asks us if we have noticed anything about the type of tourists visiting Palenque. He tells us that there aren’t a lot of Americans coming to Palenque because of its location in Chiapas- they’re afraid. There were plenty of Europeans however.

This simple comment caused a whole rush of observations to fly through my head, mostly pertaining to the history of the U.S. compared to that of Europe, and what kind of people that creates. Suddenly, the observation became a predictable one.

If you look at European history, you will find a history of violence as much as anything else. While this is true of American history as well, the violence I am talking about is between countries, where wars go on in everyone’s backyard. They are not sterilized and they cannot ever happen to “someone else’ under the best of circumstances. Moreover, when Europeans are ticked off, in general, they tend to express it- they haven’t lost a spirit of activism, even when it creates riots. As Americans, we have had the privilege of growing up generation after generation without fighting a foreign enemy in our own backyards.  With only two exceptions to the two foreign attacks on our soil in the last century, our wars have been elective- we have participated in conflicts and sent our country’s sons and daughters off to die for our own political and economic gain. Moreover, our sense of activism and outrage has degenerated into lazy whining. Take, for example, the fact that more people marched in Rome against the Iraq War, than in our own much more populous country, on Washington D.C. Yes, we were the ones pushing the agenda, but if I, as a fourteen year old girl, could see the stupidity in attacking a country over an idea that is perpetrated by a group that is not harbored in that country, under the flimsiest of logic, and the rest of the world could see this too, why were we not more outraged? Was it because our pride was wounded, because we had lost a sense of outrage which should have been evoked by our exploitation, or both?

Now that this is degenerating into a rant, I want to say that I am the last one to exalt any country, especially European ones, but this brings me back to my point about tourists: Of course insulated Americans feel “threatened” what has increasingly become nonviolent political strife in Chiapas thanks to a pervasive police presence in the region, and Europeans are willing to shrug it off for an adventure.  This sentiment is echoed in the squeamishness about my classmates when a rooster was run over by a car during one of our lectures. Yes, death is and should be a little disturbing, but that chicken lived a way better life, and died a way better death than any poor chicken subjected to a factory farm. Of course, no one wants to know that- they prefer to eat their obscenely large breast meat without thinking about the kind of steroids that we pumped into the poor bird in order for it to grow that much.  If they only knew why their apples always look so perfect…

I should say that I am not here to attack Americans either. I am as guilty as anyone else of a multitude of flaws. I am, relatively speaking, a spoiled brat. I have isolation anxiety when I am denied access to the internet. I go to a fancy school that costs more than most people in the world make in a year, members of my family included. I have enough money to eat too much when so many have too little. And I don’t participate enough in the world- my only contribution is what I learn and share with others, often to no effect whatsoever. Observations like Hugo’s remind me today that despite the inescapability of many of the characteristics I have because I grew up in a privileged environment, I don’t want to be another insulated American in a sterilized world, where bad things happen in some hypothetical other place to someone else. I want to be in the world, and experience it as a world citizen. I want to share in a sense of outrage at exploitation and do something about it, rather than sit and stare at it on TV or reading about it in the news.  The first step, it seems, is here in Mexico, but I have many more roads left to travel. In the meanwhile, I have a people and its history to experience, in Chiapas, ignorantly unafraid.

We have left Kiuic after a long two weeks testing the limits of off-the-grid living, mist-netting, exploring its archeological ruins, some of which were right under our nose the whole time, and completing midterms or finals for two of our classes. While at times, I will admit the experience was trying in ways I didn’t expect, I am definitely grateful for it. Not only was it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, from which I learned a lot from the anticipated archeological and biological experiences, but I also just how “renewable” energy is, and just how far it will stretch.

Kiuic runs entirely on solar power. According to my inside sources, this was entirely a philosophical decision as opposed to a functional one. Given the nature of Kiuic as a Biocultural Reserve, whose existence, in part, is to make a point about the sustainability of our lives and our relationship with nature, this cannot be unexpected. However, solar power is not without its drawbacks- aside from the expense of the panels, in terms of toxicity as well as money, nevermind the low-lifetime batteries, it would seem like the Reserve could do better with reducing the impact by keeping the panels and bringing the lines in. This would pour clean power into the grid when the batteries are fully charged and it is not being used on the site, off-setting the environmental cost of the panels. That said, it would also facilitate heavy laptop use of sixteen Ursinus students studying for midterms, which is probably not the best way to promote sustainability, but the sun goes down eventually.

Environmental impact extends beyond energy-consumption, of course. While those of us in the United States often have the privilege of ignoring this crucial issue, although we certainly should not in light of our food and pharmaceutical industries impact, we are among the few. The number one cause of death in “third-world” countries is not some “exotic” disease like malaria, it’s diarrhea from poor or unsanitary water quality. Kiuic addresses the water issue by providing its guests with biodegradable soap and shampoo and treats its own waste.

                Ultimately, I was left considering Americans technological decline and how that technology has simultaneously been our downfall. I’ll be the first to admit that I would be an entirely different person without my laptop on this trip, and just in general. As far back as I can remember, the computer, together with the internet, was the primary vehicle by which I learned about the world. Yes, books were always important, and I remember more than I will ever admit through conversations with parents about the economy, turbines, American government, etc, but all of these things were reinforced by finding them somewhere else, in different words and different contexts. I shouldn’t forget about what I will dramatically entitle my “Intellectual Liberation,” which, too, was manifested in books, but was reinforced with community and access to information I might have not otherwise encountered- all with a skeptical eye, of course. The cost of all of this, in terms of my lifetime carbon footprint, is probably embarrassingly high before school is even considered, especially now that I am in college. But learning is expensive, as my experience in Kiuic demonstrated, and even then our impact was limited. What was has been since then, and before? How many people still leave their laptops on all night needlessly- I’ll admit, sometimes I forget.

                All of this, and the place of the United States is slipping in the world, not just socially, but in terms of competitiveness. Hindsight is 20/20, and we probably could have done more to invest in sustainable technology before. Not only would this have alleviated our impact on our environment, at least a little bit, but we could have maintained our competitiveness in the world economy, for better or for worse. Unfortunately, we live in a country that basks in its own greatness, and social attitudes about science and technology aren’t always conducive to progress.  It’s the Amurican way- the world bends beneath us. I just hope we everyone else down, too. (I’ll leave that to China.)

Today, we visited a Mayan family living in as much of a traditional Mayan way as you can live in the 21^st century.  They live in a small community, one married couple with children and two older men on the land of an old livestock hacienda. Each of them live in a series of palapas, which are essentially huts made out of sticks with palm thatch roof, filled in with mud or clay to keep out the morning cold. Rainwater is collected for drinking and they use a purifying sediment in limestone to make it potable, although it takes about a day for the sediment to do so. For food, they grow maize on milpas and raise Africanized honeybees, in addition to some sporadic foraging.  It seemed to me that the milpas were for sustenance farming, while the honey was primarily a means of making money for what they couldn’t derive from the environment.  I won’t pretend like they live luxuriously, in fact they would be considered to live in worse than poverty if they were in the United States, but they were definitely happy and friendly people. One of the men eagerly told us stories about the people that used to live on the land, about the hacienda, and about his way of life. In many ways, although it was definitely a special occasion for all parties involved, it was like visiting a neighbor.  It was also been the highlight of my trip so far, if only because it provoked many interesting questions and observations.

When I think about poverty at home, I think of the 9^th ward, or the Ed-Lou trailer park off of Grant Road. I think of people who don’t have electricity or water or a phone because they didn’t or couldn’t pay the bill. I think of people on sustaining themselves only on disability or social security checks, food stamps and/or welfare. I don’t think of people who don’t have access to what we consider the basic elements of “civilized” life: electricity, potable water and food. I think of people who can’t afford enough of these things. Here in Mexico, poverty also includes a significant portion of the population who not only can’t pay, but don’t have access, and have even fewer opportunities for government support. This Mayan family, while a perfectly happy one, is a good example of a community without access, and probably one that doesn’t even think about acquiring it. While it is certainly something that would make their life more convenient, if not markedly more expensive, they don’t need it, so they don’t have it. In fact, that was the common theme of the visit: everything they owned served an important function.

How incredibly different is that from the way we live? I can’t even begin to recount the differences: I think I need my laptop, but I don’t. I only “need” it because I am in school, and I only “need” to go to school because I don’t want a blue-collar job (among more and less noble reasons), and I only “need” something better because I have cultural prejudices about what constitutes “having enough” and “being successful.” Think about all the things we think we need, but can actually live perfectly fine without. We only think we need them because we can’t imagine life any differently. This Mayan family, by contrast, probably can’t conceive of the world they way we do, although this doesn’t make them less than us in any way, only different. I can only imagine how bewildered this family was the first time someone took their picture, because they didn’t recognize themselves when Robert showed them the pictures he took of them last March. We live in a culture that is incredibly preoccupied with image and vanity- everything is all about presentation. I wonder when the last time, if ever, they had looked in a mirror? When was the last time you looked, and for how long?

I could honestly write for pages and pages about this family. I found so many things fascinating because they were different and so many more things fascinating because they were exactly the same despite drastically different, but comparable, worldviews, experience and knowledge. I will spare you the meandering philosophizing for now, though- I am sure it will come up some time in conversation, much like the haunting spirit of CIE.

(For pictures, check out the photo of the day for Feb. 15, at ascsd.net, courtesy of Cindy Taylor's dad)

    It is a little known fact about me that I love Art History. I was a Senior Officer of the Art Club at my high school, and I passed more time at lunch with my sophomore Art teacher than anyone else. In fact, I snuck into her room pretty much anytime I was bored, stressed out or needed a place to finish the calculus homework that was due at the end of the day. One day, in what amounted to skipping school, I tagged along on the Advanced Drawing field trip to the surrealist museum, The Menil, downtown. As a result, I picked up an lasting appreciation for art, one that expresses itself in trips to the Menil and its surrounding museums when I have days off. (Whatever those are.)
    Consequently, being in Mexico is a breath of fresh air. There is art everywhere you look! There's art in the Mayan ruins, in the government buildings, in the plazas, churches, and other public places- not just squandered away in museums, although it's beautiful and present there too. This is real art, too, not some wimpy naturalist painting. it makes a statement beyond, "I am small and the world is big." It's art you have to experience, not art I can take pictures of.
   

Most the the art I have encountered has either a political message, a sense of mischief or a combination of the two things. Additionally, the art itself is not necessarily considered with pictorial accuracy for a sense of drama, like some North American art has a tendency to do, but instead, sweeping lines and colors. It's full of intent and sucks you right in to where it wants you to go. The best examples of this were, of course, in museums, but one frequent painter visible in spaces around Merida is Fernando Castro Pacheco. While he is from Campeche, he utilizes some Yucatecan themes in his art, especially where they pertain to influential aspects of the culture- like music. At least from what I have seen, his principal subject is the struggle of the Maya and the evolution of their power. To your left is my favorite painting of his, found in the Palacio del Gobierno here in Merida. It's of obviously sick Mayan people, but the colors aren't necessarily reminiscent of death. Yellow, in many of his paintings, is the color of life and of maize. Moreover, he avoids the use of black, choosing a muted, dark blue instead, and the whole effect hides the subjects of the painting when you first look at it. It takes a minute to figure out who they are and what is happening.
    Unfortunately, I could not take pictures in the museum, and you'll have to forgive me for forgetting the artist (possibly the same, but different style?), but there was an equally dramatic, although far less subtle painting in the museum that dealt with the same theme. In it were Mayan workers, all suffering differently on an henniquen farm. Some were wincing in heat of the fire, holding tools for harvesting the henniquen. Another man was essentially crucified on one, with the sharp leaves of the henniquen plan piercing his bodies in several places. At the base of the plant, you could see that its base was a group of poisonous black vipers, rising out of the ground. Unlike the paintings in the Palacio, this artist chose much more vivid, unobscured lines, and this made for a startling presentation. I wish I could have sat in silence to stare at it longer, but for whatever reason, there are people in the world who think that it's acceptable to chatter loudly in large, echo-y rooms.
     As I left the museum, I couldn't help but wonder about the struggles depicted in North American artwork. Although I tend to be more familiar with surrealistic art, I couldn't think of very many, especially not works that were willing to be as politically open about their message. Where is the artwork in government buildings about the large-scale subjugation, importation and exploitation of millions of Africans, well after other "industrial" countries had prohibited this practice? Where is the art about Japanese prisoner camps or the Trail of Tears? Of course it exists, but why is it not celebrated in the same way? At least here, it is probably celebrated because of the large Mayan population, the fact that these people were strong in the face of opposition, and because the Spanish were the intruders and therefore have something to be ashamed of. Perhaps it is because, as the winners of these conflicts, we are the ones who have something to be ashamed of, and therefore just sweep it under the carpet, eager to point to the Lincoln Memorial if anyone questions us. Nevertheless, it is interesting food for thought.

Check the tags for more pictures of artwork, including some that I found at the Palacio in Valladolid.

Looking back on these last three and a half weeks, I feel like I have left to say about the culture here and how it has illuminated my own. At the risk of sounding moralizing or acquiring further irritation of my classmates, who have already grown weary of my excitement about the primary season and constant monitoring of the economy, I feel the desire to comment on the difference between this culture and our own with respect to how we treat the impoverished.

Mexico is not a third world country. It is a middle-upper income country that thanks to trade agreements has an expanding economy and is quickly becoming a fully “industrialized” and “developed” country. It is also a socialist country, and this is entirely necessary given that the minimum wage here is 40 pesos, or just under $4 with the exchange rate. While this money stretches farther in Mexico because of that low minimum wage and because only unnecessary, luxury goods are expensive, but it still doesn’t offer a sufficient quality of life by American standards. Of course, our minimum wage is also abysmally inadequate, especially in states that follow federal minimum wage instead of setting their own, like Texas.

Here in Mexico, you are not held responsible for your poverty. Perhaps even more so than in the U.S. , it’s very difficult to rise above the means you grew up with.  Admittance to public universities is based on merit and an entrance exam, and while tuition is rock bottom when compared to Ursinus, UTexas, or even MSUM, it is still insurmountable for a minimum wage family when scholarships and loans for school, which are not widespread here by any means, are unavailable.

In the U.S., regardless of your circumstances, you are held responsible by others for your economic situation, however unconscious this judgment is. I have experienced this first hand. The welfare system is one of the most detested and misunderstood institutions in this country by the middle and upper classes, with arguments for its abolishment because there are a few freeloaders in a system that otherwise helps thousands and thousands of people. Furthermore, while acknowledging that it is difficult to surmount your upbringing, our culture perpetuates that idea that you just have to work hard enough and have enough will power to do so. You can get loans and Pell Grants and scholarships to go to school, you can extend your day into 30 hours and go to school, do your homework, and work forty hours a week. If you just want, you will have, and if you come up short-handed, it’s because you didn’t work hard enough.

Is that why my classmates spend more energy exhibiting compassion for stray dogs than the impoverished all around them? Because we think that they are responsible for their situation, and that the dog is entirely helpless? Perhaps I am not being fair, and that judgment is not the source for this behavior. It could just as easily be ignorance or discomfort, but study abroad programs are not for perpetuating the bubble we, as privileged students, sometimes live in. I hope that my classmates open their eyes and look past that the sad puppy. There was a hungry woman with barefeet behind it who probably would have appreciated their compassion even more.