One thing I’ve noticed about “coming back” for the second time after fieldwork is “complete” is that the overall terrain of my friendships has shifted. My fieldwork friendships were perhaps out of the ordinary to begin with. Though I liked, respected, and enjoyed the company of the people with whom I was doing research, they were not my real friends in La Paz. They were not the people with whom I usually ate dinner, went to the movies, watched tv, danced or drank with on Saturday nights. I saw them often during training and attending lucha libre events. We would eat together after training or stop by the internet café for a few hours. I went to their birthday parties. But I did not call them when I was bored. I did not ask them to accompany me to the airport at strange hours. I did not stop by their workplaces just to say hello when I was bored.

Those were different friends. And there were a lot of them. I think, to an extent during my fieldwork, I felt that accumulating friends strengthened my authenticity—as a non-gringa, as a kollita, as someone who was part of this social scene in La Paz. And I met some very interesting, smart, and dynamic people. And I wanted all of them to be my close personal friends.

I had a rich social life. As I wrote in my less-academicy blog (though that’s a shaky line to draw), In La Paz, I wear vintage, rockabilly dresses or ripped jeans and t shirts given to me by tattoo artist friends. I’m a live music junkie, a tattoo shop groupie, booze-slinging benefactor, restaurant aficionada, mural-painting sidekick, dj enthusiast, and a legitimate luchadora who rarely pays for a drink.

But now, I have different priorities I guess. The people I used to be excited to see can be dreary at times. I lack enthusiasm for all the dining and boozing. I really would just rather hang out with the few close friends that I really care about than taxi around the city hopping from social scene to social scene.

I don’t know if this is what happens as you get older. Maybe it’s being a doctor (ha!). Maybe this is my form of “settling down.” But I just don’t have the energy that I once did. I don’t want to dance all night. I don’t want more than 3 glasses of wine. I want to be able to hear the conversation I’m participating in. I don’t want to impress anyone. I don’t want to prove myself. But maybe what this all means is that I’m more comfortable here now. Friends are no longer a superficial method of accounting my investment or my embeddedness. They are the people who make me smile and laugh and stop worrying about my (possibly non-existent academic) “future”. They are just my friends.

On my first day of training, when Edgar asked if I’d rather my traje have pants or a pollera, I immediately knew pants made more sense. Perhaps they would not provide the visual beauty of a pollera swirling through the air, but they certainly would be easier to wrestle in. And Edgar was not the only person who suggested I wrestle in a pollera. The LIDER luchadoras, Juanita and Benita were constantly trying to get me into one. On a Friday afternoon while we sipped coffee at a stall in Mercado Lanza, the two giggled trying to decide what color pollera would look best on me. Juanita was wearing a blue sparkly shawl and Benita’s was white. They took turns holding them up to my fact to see what color would look nice on a gringa. Even at my dissertation defense, I was asked why I didn’t wear a pollera to wrestle. 

during my dissertation defense, I explain-oh so eloquently-why I do not wear a pollera to wrestle 

My answer, simply, is that I have no right to wear a pollera. The pollera is often considered to be the most visible symbol of Bolivian indigeneity, which is not just a racial category, but a class-based subjectivity and a political identification. The pollera has a long history, from being institutionalized dress for hacienda workers to a visible symbol of working-class women’s political protest throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. Wearing the pollera is not just a clothing choice, but is a performance of identification with these histories and contemporary associations. As a gringa with no stake in any of these categories associated with the pollera, it seemed that for me to wrestle in one would appear as a farce.

Sure, seeing a gringa in a pollera might be just as amusing for Bolivians as the “cholitas luchadoras” are for the foreigners that flock to their shows. But that doesn’t mean that I have a right to wear one. As Jaya Bedi writes so eloquently, “The political context in which cultural symbols exist is important. Cultural appropriation happens — and the unquestioned sense of entitlement that white Americans display towards the artifacts and rituals of people of color exists too. All ‘appropriation’ is not merely an example of cultural sharing, an exchange between friends that takes place on a level playing field.”

And I think my position is actually strengthened by the time I did wear a pollera (outside of the ring). When I appeared at Shirley’s party in a pollera and Gonz shouted “cholita punk.” My friends were amused because my representation was ironic. As I write in my dissertation (I think it’s still in there, but Cholita Punk was sadly cut), “Irony often functions as a ‘frame shifting’ mechanism (Coulson 2001) in order to express humor. When I entered the party wearing a pollera, Gonz shouting ‘cholita punk’ shifted the frame from the representation of cholitas as traditional and thoroughly Bolivian icons, to something integrated with the international youth culture of punk rock. Even my own laughter at wearing the pollera and braids played on the disjuncture of a U.S. gringa in clothing with cultural meaning in the Andes. And most certainly, when Luis suggested I wrestle, irony was used to disrupt the usual interpretation of a mujer de pollera.”

Now there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging the ways cholitas are no longer merely a form of local subject, but now are globally active citizens (I have 2 chapters on that). But the point remains that for a gringa to appear in public (versus the private party) in a pollera most certainly degrades the rich history of the skirt and the complex ways of identifying employed by the women who wear them daily. And we must not forget that ways of identifying are not neutral. The “chola,” the mujer de pollera, the indígena are marginalized and historically stigmatized categories in Bolivia. And the “Bolivian woman” in general is discriminated against all over the hemisphere, from Buenos Aires to Phoenix. 

Again I refer to Bedi, who writes, “If the use of the bindi by mainstream pop stars made it easier for South Asian women to wear it, I’d be all for its proliferation — but it doesn’t. They lend the bindi an aura of cool that a Desi woman simply can’t compete with, often with the privilege of automatic acceptance in a society when many non-white women must fight for it.” To paraphrase her, what makes a white woman’s use of the pollera problematic is the fact that a gringa wearing one is guaranteed to be better received than if a Bolivian woman were to step out of the house rocking one. On me, it would be a bold new look (sure to catch lots of stares, but no one’s going to shew me away from a fancy restaurant). On a Bolivian woman it’s yet another marker of her Otherness. A symbol of her failure at whiteness, at cosmopolitanism, to participate in a global citizenship. 

Dina, Juanita, and Claudina (from LIDER) show off their bad, cosmopolitan selves

Of course the cholitas luchadoras work hard to combat this image of the mujer de pollera as local not global, stigmatized not empowered, marginalized not powerful. And they have made excellent advances. But we’re not there yet. Despite the mujeres de pollera that have been elected or appointed to high profile government positions, it is still an Other form of dress. One worth celebrating. But not yet ready to be paraded in public as the funny thing the gringa’s wearing. Maybe some day…..but for now my beautiful pollera will stay in a closet in Illinois. 

In the evening I met Carrie, Lisa, and their friend Joanna who teaches English at local schools at a swanky restaurant. Rendezvous, owned by a Bolivian woman and her American husband who does the cooking, is nestled in the neighborhood of Sopocachi, which my Chilean friends and I used to call SoHoCachi in reference to the fancy New York neighborhood. Carrie was turning 28 on June 28, and apparently in Canada this is called a Champagne Birthday. And Champagne there was. 

We drank a bottle and a ½ before the rest of the guests arrived and we all went to the large table set in the “wine cellar.” Attending were Karen, a long-time receptionist at a Death Road Biking company that was originally from London. Marcelo, the gringo hunter sat to my left. Omar, Joanna’s boyfriend and a bar manager, and their friends Isaac and his sister Abigail from Australia sat at the other end of the table. James, the Ekko hostel manager and Carrie’s boyfriend sat across from me, next to Cara, a Peruvian, and her husband Patty, an Irishman who own the Irish Rose hostel. To my right was Gerard manager of the Irish Rose. 

I had never met Cara before, and first up in the conversation was why I spend so much time in La Paz. I gave my usual answers: It’s a beautiful city with clear skies and mountains towering above the bustle of life. It’s a city de verdad, but but small enough you can walk most anywhere in El Centro (save for some blocks that are just too steep). And the size also means I know people. I run into friends in restaurants and bars or while walking down the street. It doesn’t feel cold and anonymous. It feels like home.

I thought I liked her at first. She also prefers La Paz over Cuzco, which is a rare thing in these parts. I dislike Cuzco because it’s too touristy. She dislikes it because beyond the touristy parts, it’s too poverty-stricken. She made some good points: There are no good grocery stores in Cuzco. There are no movie theaters. La Paz totally wins. But then she began telling me about Arequipa: It’s lovely and green. The weather is warm and sunny. It’s just a few hours from the ocean. This also means fresh seafood. But then…It has Starbucks “and all those chains that are so nice.” She went on about the luxuries of American chains in Arequipa for quite some time. Shopping malls and fast food. And she essentially suggested that Arequipa is a nice place because you can pretend you’re living in North America, except for speaking Spanish.

I was getting annoyed, and was glad when Carrie started talking to us about her upcoming trip to Cuzco. She was especially excited because until that morning her passport had been in immigration, awaiting residency. So, of course then we started talking about residency. Gerard complained that his permanent residency was held up because during his first 1 year residency he hadn’t applied for a carnet (neither did I…). Cara complained that her residency took too long and she eventually had to threaten her lawyer “If you get it by tomorrow, I’ll give you $500. If you don’t I won’t pay you anything.”

Ah, such luxury. This really annoyed me, I suppose. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I literally almost died trying to get my residency. It would have been nice to just pay some lawyer to do everything for me. Discussions of residency also make me angry because I felt kind of exploited by my job who did nothing to help me get mine. And I get frustrated, because as a US citizen it’s about 100 times harder for me to get residency than any other nationality.

But mostly, it makes me think about global inequalities. It makes me think about all of my Bolivian friends who I would love to invite to visit me, and would love to do so. But they can’t even get a 1 week tourist visa to my country. Because they might try to stay and work illegally. Or be cocaine-toting socialist-terrorists. Or something.

But of course out of all this Karen pipes up and tells me that the new Olivers needs a manager and I should ask D for the job and stay forever. Which would be lovely. Except I am currently in the life-mode where I’m a little too proud of having a Ph.D. to want to be a bar manager. It is tempting. I feel like I started having a life here, and going back to the US never really sounds enticing. I love my family, certainly, but other than them and a handful of friends who are scattered all over the northern 1/3 of the American continent, it would not make me sad at all to never return (ok, not never, but for a while). But despite all my longing to stay in this place, when people suggest I work in a bar, it offends me just a little. I want to shout “Do you really think I spent 6 years getting a Ph.D. so that I can serve a bunch of ugly llama sweater wearing 19 year old gap-yah kids ridiculously cheap vodka?”

I guess I just want a little respect for all the work I put in. I mean, yes, I acknowledge all the privilege it took to get here. It wasn’t just about hard work. But at least among the people at the table Friday night, all of whom were certainly enjoying the La Paz ex-pat privilege, I wanted a little respect. And then the bill came. Which is to say that the bill did not come. The whole time I had been worried that the 400 bolivianos in my wallet was not going to be enough to cover my 4 course meal and the endless bottles of champagne we were drinking. But alas, James and the owner had worked out a deal, and most of us were paying nothing.

I thought about the birthday celebrations I went to Monday and Wednesday of that same week for Bolivian friends. Both were in Mechanical Wood, a nice bar just a few blocks away in Sopocachi. We drank Paceña beers or pitchers of vodka and sprite. We ate onion rings and spinach nuggets. We talked about our favorite villains from movies and children’s cartoons. We made silly future life plans. We promised to attend each other’s upcoming concerts. And I felt like part of something. At Carrie’s party I felt like I was struggling to distance myself from something that felt very fake. That felt exploitative and superficial. And as much as I appreciated Karen’s offers of help, I just couldn’t help but feel these people who shared so much more in common with me didn’t understand me nearly as well as the friends I had celebrated with earlier in the week.