Photo courtesy of Bolivian wrestler, Mr. Atlas
​

Lucha libre, or freestyle/exhibition wrestling in Bolivia is similar to "exhibition-style" or professional in much of Latin America, including Mexico. 

As part of this increased visibility of Mexican wrestling in the 1950s, luchadores began traveling throughout Latin America putting on events. Huracán Ramirez and Rayo de Jalisco were among those who spent time in Bolivia. They also trained new wrestlers in the cities they visited. Some early Bolivian wrestlers included: Mr. Atlas, Principe [The Prince], SI Montes, Medico Loco [Crazy Doctor], and Diablo Rojo [Red Devil].

During the 1960s lucha libre events took place in the Perez Velasco, a commercial area just outside of central La Paz, popular among working class and middle class people. Luchadores usually wrestled in a makeshift ring and set up seating in a fútbol field. The costumes during this time were not particularly flashy and almost everything was improvised. But by the mid-1970s, the Coliseo Olimpico [Olympic Coliseum], a 7500 seat sports arena, was built in the central neighborhood of San Pedro, leading to more visibility.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, interest in lucha libre waned in La Paz. But in the late 1990s, a major shift occurred when Bolivian lucha libre first appeared on television. In 1998, a group of luchadores calling themselves Furia de Titanes [Fury of Titans], who were regularly putting on shows at the Coliseo Olimpico, noticed TV personality Adolfo Paco in the audience. They approached him about beginning a lucha libre program on Asociación Televisión Boliviana (ATB) channel 9, and he agreed. The program was filmed in the Coloseo de Villa Victoria, in a more peripheral neighborhood of La Paz, and was an immediate success. In addition to large television audiences, the group began attracting long lines of people hoping to see the shows taped live. Luchadores gained notoriety and were featured in local newspapers and magazines. With the addition of several corporate sponsors, luchadores earned about $200 per event.

But this success was fleeting, because not all were highly skilled, and Paco was undiscerning. This caused bitter arguments among the wrestlers. By 1999, Furia de Titanes had split in two. Those who kept the name Furia de Titanes remained on ATB, while others adopted the name Lucha de Campeones [Champions’ Wrestling] and began wrestling on the Uno network, channel 11. The rupture ultimately resulted in smaller audiences, in response to which sponsors terminated their support and thus luchadores in both groups took home significantly less pay. Lucha de Campeones, for example, offered free entrance to their live shows to encourage larger audiences, but as a result luchadores made only 250 to 350 Bolivianos ($35-50 US) per event. In the year 2000, several luchadores complained to Paco that they had never received the health insurance he had promised them. Paco ignored their requests and in retaliation, the luchadores refused to put on their event the next Sunday. They never appeared on television again. However, the end of lucha libre on Bolivian television was quickly followed by the beginning of what might be considered the current era of Bolivian lucha libre, which includes a number of groups in La Paz: Titanes del Ring, LIDER, and Super Catch, among them. Each of these groups also include "cholitas luchadoras," otherwise known as "cholitas luchadoras" [fighting cholitas].
​

​I am not indigenous. I am a middle class child of parents of English, German, and Polish heritage. I’m third generation US by grandparent with the most recent arrival. I’m also a descendent of Mayflower passengers. For all intents and purposes I am white. I’ve been mistaken for being Brazilian on occasion, but that’s about as non-white as I get. And those mistaken moments were in South American nations in which Brazilian might be imagined as “more white” than the general population, so even considering those moments to indicate a level of non-white-appearing-ness, is doubtful.
 
I am not indigenous. At times I say I do research with indigenous people, but even that is only partially true. Mostly I study the meanings and significance of the concept of indigeneity. But I do know a fair number of people who consider themselves indigenous Americans, from Cherokee, Ojibwe, and Navajo to Aymara, Quechua, and Mapuche, and I value learning about their experiences. There is no doubt that I come from a world of privilege and they and their ancestors have been subject to extreme forms of structural and physical violence for centuries.
 
I say all this in order to make very clear that I do not know what it is like to be indigenous. But on this international day of the indigenous woman, I can’t help but think of the experiences I have had that help me access a small level of understanding of what it might be like for some indigenous women in the world today.
 
I grew up in a small town. It was the kind of place where your parents knew what kind of trouble you got into even before you got home from school in the afternoon. Inevitably, Mom or Dad knew someone who worked in the school, and news would travel fast, even before the days of social media. There are no traffic lights in town. There used to be one red blinking light at the biggest intersection, but when the state told the municipality they’d no longer pay for it’s upkeep we took it down. There’s no question you’ll run into someone you know, even walking to the post office or village hall. People can be insular in my small town. We don’t trust outsiders. We don’t trust anyone who doesn’t have at least 4 cousins (extended cousins count, of course) to vouch for them. It’s a conservative place. And sometimes we feel a little disenfranchised.
 
We are white and we are middle class. But politicians don’t seem to care whether we vote for them or not. We don’t get many state-sponsored works projects. Businesses don’t seem to think they’ll make much money in our town, though a Subway franchise and Dollar General store took a chance on us a few years ago, and they seem to be doing well.
 
Now don’t get me wrong. I’ve lived on the Navajo reservation. I’ve lived in an auto-constructed house in Alto Hospicio. We’ve still got it good. But I remember showing up to my first days of University classes at a prestigious private university, and feeling so embarrassed that I hadn’t taken any AP classes. I didn’t even know what AP stood for. And all this talk of 3s and 4s and 5s meant nothing to me. And GPAs that went beyond 4.0. It was all new. Suddenly, all the hard work I had done in my little public high school of 150 students seemed inadequate. I felt like I was out of my league.
 
But here is where my experience departs from that of many indigenous women who even make it to university classes. I didn’t look out of place (unlike Lara in Bolivia). My subtle Midwestern rural accent and idiolect were easy enough to shift (no more ‘may-sure’, I now say ‘meh-sure’, no more ‘pop,’ it’s ‘soda’ now). And I may have had a few bizarre customs like cow chip bingo, but these were easy to turn into a funny anecdote. My assimilation was quick and easy.
 
I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished in life, and I’m proud of the town I came from. But I recognize the incongruence of my urban life with my rural upbringing. I never truly feel ‘in my place’. In London, I long to hear a midwestern drawl, all while being secretly happy that I can pull off a ‘sorry’ without alerting anyone to my country of origin. In New York, I feel at once at home and reviled by hipsters in Carhartts. In Santiago, I try to explain why they Chilean campo feels so oppressive but in the US being in the country makes me feel so free. I can only imagine the ways that indigenous women feel between two worlds in their own ways if and when they move to the city or pursue higher education.
 
So, today, on this international day of the indigenous woman, I salute all indigenous women. Those who work in their natal communities, and those who have left them to make themselves better in the world or make the world a better place. I cannot imagine the challenges they face, but my own experiences make it quite clear that their feats are not easy ones. I so admire the strength I see in native women fighting back against oppression in the forms of colonialism, patriarchy, environmental racism, and other struggles. Viva la mujer indígena! 

​I don’t recall exactly how it began, but I was “la gringa.” Somewhere during my first year in Iquique, Chile, my two best friends began calling me as such, and soon hearing my given name from them just sounded wrong. They were a gay couple, both trained in derechos (law). Guillermo worked for the national Consulario—the institution that oversees government finances, and Cristian for la Defensoria del Pueblo—something like a public defense organization. Cristian had lived in the United States during a few different stints, and both had plans to pursue graduate education abroad.
 
When I left Iquique after two years to relocate to Santiago, I was particularly sad about leaving them behind. Not only had they been dear friends, confidants, Chilean history lesson providers, and cooking instructors, but they had also opened their home to me several times when I either physically needed a place to stay, or was so emotionally wraught from fieldwork that I needed an escape. But within a few months, Guillermo, originally from Santiago, had secured a position in the central office of the Consulario, and Cristian was interviewing for jobs in the metropolitan region as well. By summer we were reunited.
 
And while I had been indeed the gringa in Iquique—even more-so in the marginal satellite city of Alto Hospicio where I had lived and done my research, suddenly in Santiago I easily passed as someone who “belonged.” Perhaps at first glance it was clear I was not Chilean, and certainly confirmed when I began to speak with my muddled accent, and overly forced slang. But there were so many of us foreigners around that I was finally breathing sighs of relief that I was unremarkable. Here, gringa made less sense, but the nickname persisted. While I had always taken it as a term of endearment, it was questioned more in Santiago. “Aren’t you offended?” my Colombian apartment-mate would ask. But slowly he began calling me “gringa” as well. As did my boss, who had also become something of a friend. I heard “oye, Gringa” dozens of times each day, and received social media messages and emails addressed as such in addition.
 
And then my time in Chile ended. Before taking that long flight back to Chicago, I went to visit Bolivia, the place of my Ph.D. fieldwork, and suddenly I went back to being Nelly, or “la doctora.” My friend Gustavo and I went from La Paz to visit Cochabamba for a weekend, and we met up with a large group of friends, most of whom I had known several years earlier in La Paz. But there were some newcomers, a group of young people from Santiago who were visiting as well. As we all paraded around a Cochabamba supermarket contemplating what to grill that Saturday afternoon, I heard a Chilean accented voice shout, “Oye, Gringa!” I instinctively looked up, only seconds later wondering how this man knew I would respond to that name. Is it just that Chileans all call people gringos? Am I so very obviously Estadounidense that calling me anything else doesn’t seem to be an option, at least to someone who does not remember my name? And as I looked around for the voice’s owner, contemplating these possibilities, I realized he was not speaking to me, but to the Argentine women who was traveling with them.
 
Over the course of the weekend I never learned the Argentine’s given name, because she was exclusively referred to as Gringa. She was tall and had half of her hair died blonde. The other half of her head was shaven to buzz cut. She had a deep laugh and bright colored Adidas high top shoes that complimented her day-glow t shirt. I could easily imagine her as the stereotypical Argentine traveler juggling small balls or doing gymnastics at a traffic light in another South American country. And the name that had for so long felt so singularly mine, suddenly felt cheapened. If any foreigner could be a gringa, just because her skin was light, maybe it wasn’t a term of endearment. I never questioned Guillermo and Cristian’s motives, but somehow that word no longer felt like home.
 
Mary Weismantel writes, “Foreigners—a category that includes Latin American visitors as well—are gringos, but they are members of the same race as local whites.” Gringa will always be special to me, even as I write about the politics of whiteness in places like Iquique, La Paz, and Santiago. But I also must remember, it is not just a name, but a positionality, and its meaning…like chola, indian, indigenous person, black, person of color, or any other racialized naming form…is always historically, contextually, and politically dependent. 

My book review of Aymara Indian Perspectives on Development in the Andes is now published at Anthropology Book Forum. Though to me, the book didn't have much relevance to Anthropology or Indigenous Studies (as I had hoped), and was based on interviews but not immersed ethnography, it was useful and important in a lot of other ways. Check out my review here.

Carnaval in northern Chile does not look much like images of carnivals in Trinidad or Brazil. Celebrations range from local fiestas to parades of folkloric dancers and music, to outdoor concerts featuring national pop stars. 

I describe here, a trip by city residents to a town of 500 people for a carnival celebration. Nicole’s father grew up in this small town and the whole family was returning for the celebration. As I met Nicole and her boyfriend at the corner between our nearby apartment buildings she was already filming with her brother’s GoPro camera. 

Nicole’s boyfriend Martin and I had decided to come along just the day before, and all of the hostels in the town were booked. So, when the three of us drove into town in Martin's Jeep, we immediately set about looking for a camping spot. We found one next to a small building labeled as the city’s Social Sport Club. We set up the tents as the sun was setting and ate some rice with tuna. After cleaning up the food we walked to the center of town.

Though the permanent population is only 550, there were several thousand people in the town that night. Like Nicole and her father, many people who grew up there or have family connections return for carnival. In this town, carnival takes the form of a rivalry between los Rojos and los Verdes (the Reds and the Greens). The town is filled with triangular banners, red and green on different streets depending on the residents’ loyalties. The only explanation I was given about the different groups is that it is a rivalry to see who has the best party, the best band, the best food, and the best dancing. “I have no idea how it started,” most people told me. What strikes me as interesting however, is that in describing this rivalry, people use he word ‘pelea’ (fight) rather than ‘competencia’ (competition). Nicole told me that some times individuals from opposing groups will get into fights, but this is not necessarily condoned. Indeed, mischief rather than violence, was the overwhelming theme of the event. Silly string, shaving cream, confetti, and colored powder were constantly being sprayed or rubbed in people’s hair and faces. Yet this was within the Verdes group rather than between Verdes and Rojos. 

In the Verdes’ party, there was a live band playing folk music to which everyone danced, and plenty of drinking. A few people wore Halloween-type costumes, but most people wore blue jeans and tshirts. By the end of the night, everyone was covered in silly string and colored powder.

A few days later, after we had returned to the city, Nicole, Martin, and I all posted our photos on Facebook. Most were taken while at the party focusing on people drinking, dancing, or covered in powder and confetti. Two very short videos Nicole took on her cell phone also showed the event as full of people dancing, yelling, waving flags, and throwing powder. Nicole’s family also tagged her in several photos. These all seemed to capture the experience I had somewhat accurately. Certain aspects were missing, such as the stack of empty beer bottles on the table, and the delicious rabbit stew, but they were pictures of the party.

Nicole also edited her GoPro video and posted it to Youtube. Yet, this video focused far more on the trip itself. She begins by announcing to the camera “We are starting our adventure!” Set to a club remix of a pop song, the 5 minute video reminds me of a road trip montage sequence from some sort of teen movie. Desert mountains cruise by the passenger window. Images of the passengers getting out to stretch show more of the landscape. Then the video cuts to preparing and eating food at the camp site. Finally, around the 3 minute mark of the video we arrive at the carnival celebration. We enter the dance hall, where the celebration is just starting. About 15 people are dancing. There is no confetti or powder flying through the air. In fact, many people at the tables look bored. And the video fades out while each of us begins drinking a beer.

When I saw this the first time I was struck by how different the party looked through these two different media. Comments from friends made it even more clear how the two functioned in different ways. While comments on facebook photos were generally along the lines “what a great party!” comments on the video complimented the beauty of the scenery and the style of the video. It seemed that Facebook represented the place to show off the great party atmosphere of carnival while Youtube was a place for more artistic expression, focusing not only on the party, but the trip in general. Nicole confirmed in fact that she knew pictures on Facebook were more fun, but more temporal. They would disappear to the bottom of her wall in a few days, but the Youtube video would be something she would go back to and share with people in the future. She took time editing it to make it look more artistically beautiful, whereas with the fotos on Facebook, she simply loaded all that she had taken with her cellphone. Facebook was for the quick and easy. Youtube was for lasting memories. 

Today is 12 of October. In the Midwest, where I went to elementary school, this is known as Columbus Day. Later, as I gained a bit more worldly perspective I came to call it Indigenous People’s Day or Genocide Day under my breath. A few days ago, I got upset when my mother, who is a second grade teacher, mentioned she had Columbus Day off—partly because it is still institutionalized and partly because she called it Columbus Day without a hint of critique. But I’ll cut her some slack. When I’m in central Illinois she usually lets me come talk to her class about colonization. And the amazing thing is, when you explain that colonization was simply a bunch of Europeans who wanted to take the resources on another continent and felt it was necessary to murder, enslave, rape, and destroy the residents of that place in the process, even 8 year olds are pretty quick to realize that this is not something to be celebrated.

I arrived at the Preuniversitario where it was held around noon and was immediately asked where I’m from. I felt a little defensive and said that Raquel had invited me and hoped it would be ok if I could just stand in the back and watch. And then I realized the woman had asked me because all of the other audience members had pin on badges that announced what country they are from. Chile and Peru dominated the group of 50, but there were a few small nametag-sized Bolivian, Ecuadorian, and Colombian flags pinned to shirts as well. Unfortunately there were no United States pins on hand, but they were happy to have me. The chairs were all full, so I stood along the back and watched a slide projection on the front wall. There were pictures of Alto Hospicio and various local groups interspersed with graphical slogans such as “12 de octubre, 2013: 521 años de resistencia” [521 years of resistance] and “Por la dignidad de los pueblos americanos, 12 de octubre nada que celebrar” [For the dignity of american peoples, 12 October is nothing to celebrate].
 

The program began with a Chilean Cueca dance performed by two pairs adolescent boys and girls. Then the Ecuadorian woman who had greeted me earlier performed a pop song from her country. Representatives from the Colombian and Ecuadorian immigrant associations in Iquique spoke. An Afro-Peruvian woman sang two more songs, and several community figures and political candidates spoke briefly. Scattered throughout all of these various performances were discourses about the unity of the Americas against Europeans and Gringos (“that’s me!” I thought…). The Peruvian singer shouted several times over the boombox that accompanied her “America Latina es una sola!”

As the last local leader was speaking, Raquel came and stood next to me at the back. She asked if I could stay for the reception afterwards because she’d like to introduce me to a few people. I accepted and met several of the people she works with at the Preuniversitario along with being coerced into eating plenty of bocadillos, ceviche, and grilled shrimp.

As the reception was ending, Raquel’s friend Juan called everyone to the back room to take a photo. I lingered in the front room, but he singled me out saying “You too, Nell. You’re from the Americas. We need our representative from the United States present.” So I followed the crowd to the back, where we rearranged ourselves a number of times against a backdrop of handpainted paper flags, and finally got a decent shot (well, you can be the judge). 

There is certainly some multicultural pride here in Alto Hospicio, at least when it comes to public presentation. And the mix of anti-colonial and multi-cultural discourses was interesting, but not surprising given what I’ve seen here so far. But what I find most interesting is the memorialization that occurs through such events. Though the focus is on celebration and community, it is framed by this discourse of resistance to colonization and a memorialization of a past that continues to influence present events. One of the SocNet themes of focus is on the way memorialization occurs through social networks (see Shriram Venkatrama's account from India here). I’ve been keeping my eye out for Facebook pages dedicated to individuals who have died, but perhaps more important are these ways of memorializing political events and figures, not only online but in real life events, and the naming of institutions (more on that in the next post!). 

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. 

A friend requested I translate this for use in his anthropology class. I'm not sure it is closely connected to my research, but I thought I'd put it here, since I spent a little time doing it:

CHAMAKAT SARTASIRY

We Aymaras[1] are original peoples of America.
We lived here for thousands and thousands of years
From these lands
He’s saying that its growing in the shade
He is beginning to talk forever
[these last two lines, I’m not sure I’m entirely understanding the poetics of what they’re saying]
No and without shame
Thousands and thousands are millions my Aymara community
With the blood of Tupac Katari[2]
This name we write on the walls
Aymaras, Quechuas[3] are rising up with force
With force they are coming

Our forefathers left us all that is good, beautiful and grand
Their children should learn the Ayllu[4] is an organization
Our forefathers left us all that is good, beautiful and grand
The original Aymaras should continue to guide us
And we should not depart from this life
The voice of the Aymara of the Quechua
Rises up from darkness
Lighting Latin America with a great light that emerges, creates
Now the sun is going to leave
Now for us we arrive on the path
On the path we will illuminate
White clouds that seem like swirls of wind
That lift to fly like the condor Mallku[5]
To be like the cold snow of the mountain range
Aymaras, Quechuas are rising up with force
With force they are coming

My community I don’t want to see suffering
My community I don’t want to see crying
I don’t want to see them sad
Lets go, let’s go blood brothers
We won’t die kneeling, that’s how it will be
Now yes, now we’re going to do it
This great day for everyone will arrive
That [day] which is going to illuminate the dark is coming
The return, now yes.
Now, yes, now we’re going to do it
To complete the dream of our ancestors to walk on the paths of our ancestors
To sing together new winds
Aymaras, Quechuas are rising up with force
With force they are coming


[1] Most populous indigenous group in the Altiplano (high plane) where La Paz and El Alto are located

[2] Indigenous revolution leader agains colonists-he failed and was hanged. His last words were “I will come back as Millions”

[3] Second most populous indigenous group

[4] Allyus (pronounced eye-yous) are pre-colonial agricultural/community groups based on reciprocity

[5] The condor is a sacred animal in the Andes (for several different indigenous groups, including Aymara and Quechua)

Here is also a fairly recent article in the NYT about Wayna Rap. However, I should mention that I disagree entirely with the assessment that it is "not exactly the place you would expect to find a thriving, politically charged rap culture." In fact, it is precisely the place I would expect to find that. But NYT seems to clinging to a notion that "tradition" can exist in a world with neoliberal accumulation and extensive flows of people, goods, and ideas. 

Friday night, I found myself at one of those gringo clubs celebrating (bemoaning?) the departure of two of my favorite non-Bolivian acquaintances in La Paz, Alison and Bryn. Because it was Friday night, there was a live dj, who was actually Bolivian. He also had with him a little posse of young affluent Paceños. One, a beautiful young woman wearing a low-cut dress and heels that would have caused me to seriously hurt myself caught my eye because of the frequency and duration of affectionate displays with her boyfriend (which is not to downplay the frequency and duration of certain gringos’ displays). Later in the evening, as I walked by, she and Alison were conversing. Alison grabbed me and said, dripping with sarcasm, that she was learning some “very useful” Spanish phrases. At which point, the young Bolivian woman taught me some things “to say to my boyfriend” (which, incidentally, I will not be saying to my boyfriend).

Eventually, we exchanged names and she told me hers was Huayra. “It’s in Aymara!” she told me with pride. This struck me as strange. Here was a 45 kilo, 19 year old Bolivian woman with wavy light brown hair. Her skin was almost as light as mine. Her features were decidedly not Aymara. And she lives in Zona Sur. I realize I am grossly stereotyping here, but she did not initially strike me as someone likely to have an Aymara name. I would have expected her to be called Jenny more readily than Huayra.

Of course, I thought, maybe this is just a case of my own naiveté, so I asked around yesterday. “Do many parents call their children by Aymara names?” The most interesting answer I got went something like this. “No, I don’t think so. But lots of parents give their children weird names. I have uncles called Pascual and Pastor. That’s like naming your kids Easter Sunday and Sheep-herder.” So, perhaps this is just a fluke, just a random thing I ran into. But I think perhaps, rather, it is an indicatinon of the valorization of a certain representation of “Aymara culture.” And more importantly, a valorization by people of a class that as a whole (though I’ll say nothing of Huayra’s parents, because I have no idea who or what they are) which perpetuates class/ethnic divisions in La Paz.

…now as soon as I get some sort of dvd playing machine in my possession I’ll watch Zona Sur and see how that figures in.