So the Tito’s guys walk into the bar in their certain affected ways, dripping with meaning. But they are not naked fusions of heads and limbs. They are not just bodies. They are bodies that are covered in various ways.

Gonz wears a black Pantera shirt over a black turtleneck. He has long, thick wavy hair pulled back in a ponytail. He has two lip piercings (of the sort I’ve heard my sister call “snakebites”), along with a few silver hoops in his ears.

Alé often wears an Ed Hardy shirt with a tiger on it that he told me he bought at the El Alto market one Sunday. He wears baggy light colored jeans and black Adidas shoes that often have the laces untied. His dark brown leather jacket has a sweatshirt hood poking out the collar. He shaves his head to the second lowest setting once a week. He has small black flesh plug earrings, and his right hand has a tattoo in black and red of a rotary tattoo machine that says “calibración.”

Edwin, the owner, in many ways looks the least menacing of them all. His medium sized flesh tunnel earrings are the most obvious visible nod to his career. He wears glasses that hover in the space between hipster and dorky. The night that Gonz surprised me with his energy, Edwin wore a white tshirt with the DC skateboarding logo on it. After 2 beers, he lifted it up to reveal the tattoo of a classic 1950s auto. He said, “and it’s a transformer!” I was puzzled. Then I started laughing hysterically as he puffed out the stomach and it resembled more of a VW bug than a long lean car.

Diego, I always picture in his “Johnny Walked” shirt—with the Johnny Walker logo, only in a wheelchair. He has black spiky hair and fairly large flesh tunnel earrings. He almost always wears ray ban sunglasses outdoors. He has a goatee and tattoos peak out of his shirt on his neck and his arms.

Their bodies, in some ways more than others,’ are obviously constructed. The piercings (many of which take time to stretch) and tattoos are visibly “unnatural.” But though the specifics might differ, their bodies are constructed through the same processes as everyone else’s. Donald Lowe (2005) lists, among other things, that processes of bodily construction include the work we do, the commodities we consume, and the politics of gender and sexuality to which we ascribe or aspire. In other words, these bodies (all bodies) flexibly accumulate markers through consumption, production, and identity practices.

What they have accumulated, among other things, is the ability to perform as authentic tattoo artists. Much has been written on the ways that both dress (Adkins and Lury 1999, Atluri 2009, Halberstam 1998), and purchase of goods (Mort 1995, 1998, Tomlinson 1990) work to perform authenticity of identity. Because they rely on social scripts (the ones that tell us not to trust a barber with a bad haircut or a tattoo artist with no tattoos), over time these symbols congeal to produce appearance of naturalness (Butler 1999:44). (Well, of course my tattoo artist wears a leather jacket. What would you expect? A tweed sport coat?)

As Bucholtz and Hall explain, authenticity (or as they say, “authentication,” to emphasize its active and processual nature) is about realness in contrast to artifice. Certain accumulations (clothing, tattoos and piercings for the Tito’s guys, or boyfriends from Travestis in India) provide validation for identities (2005:500).

Often authentication of identity is achieved through connection to valued symbols (Bucholtz and Hall 2005:500). But as Lowe writes, “All body practices [production practices, consumption practices, social reproduction practices, practices of sexuality and gender construction, and practices of psychopathology] have become commodified to such an extent, that the satisfaction of our diverse bodily needs is reconfigured by the requirements of flexible accumulation" (1995). Thus the “valued symbols” of today are often connected to certain brand names: Ed Hardy, DC, Pantera (yes I, along with other more respectable figures, argue bands at times may constitute a brand in and of itself).

Through juxtaposed images and signs, advertising connects product characteristics with prevailing social and cultural values. As a result, we no longer consume commodities to satisfy relatively stable and specific needs, but to reconstruct ourselves in terms of the lifestyle associated with the consumption of certain commodities.

Much like the travelers at the Ekko bar, the tattooists flexibly accumulate symbols of their identities: t shirts that reference “alternative” subcultures related to music or skateboarding, piercings of various sizes, visible tattoos, and bodily comportment that indexes an atagonistic attitude toward the world (authority?). And like the tourists, this accumulation, though it relies on certain forms of consumption, is not simply about buying specific products, but includes the accumulation of non-commodified symbols. Alé’s image of the tattoo machine on his hand is a clear example. Even his Ed Hardy tshirt, which likely cost less than 5Bs (75 cents) in El Alto is a product that is purchased, but is important for its social capital rather than its economic worth. 

However, as Carolan (2005) argues, in this new era of conspicuous consumption, surrounding oneself with "nice things" is insufficient … rather we are striving to become the 'Nice thing" itself, to literally embody our consumption. He suggests this is visible in the ways bodies are dressed, fed, comported, and even their apparent "health.” The outward appearance of one's body is considered to be a window to one's inner worthiness. Thus we arrive back at the body, a vehicle for brands and symbols. Litterally punctured. Literally written upon. And yet, perhaps it is the (somewhat) irreversible nature of these two latter processes that provides the sense of authenticity. A gate can be altered. A shirt can be changed. I know that Alé has a suit hanging in his closet. But that “calibración” on his hand is still going to be visible. And is still going to reference a very specific identity. 

Adkins, Lisa and Celia Lury
1999  The Labour of Identity: Performing Identities, Performing Economies. Economy and Society 28(4):598-614.

Atluri, Tara
2009  Lighten Up?! Humour, Race, and Da Off Colour Joke of Ali G. Media, Culture, & Society 31(2):197-214

Bucholtz, Mary and Kira Hall
2005 Identity and Interaction: A Sociocultural Linguistic Approach. Discourse Studies 7(4-5):585-614.

Butler, Judith
1999 Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge.

Carolan, Michael S.
2005 The Conspicuous Body: Capitalism, Consumerism, Class and Consumption. Worldviews 9(1):82-111.

Halberstam, Judith
1998  Female Masculinity. Durham: Duke University Press.

Lowe, Donald M.
1995 The Body in Late-Capitalist USA. Durham: Duke University Press.

Mort, Frank
1998  Cityscapes: Consumption, Masculinities and the Mapping of London since 1950. Urban Studies 35(5-6):889-907.
1995  Archaeologies of City Life: Commerical Culture, Masculinity, and Spatial Relations in 1980s London. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 13:573-590.

Tomlinson, Alan
1990  Consumption, Identity, and Style: Marketing, Meanings, and the Packaging of Pleasure. New York: Routledge.

Last Thursday, I found myself in the Ekko bar, when Gonz, Luis, and Edwin from Tito’s Tattoos sauntered in. They stayed near the door, and there was part of me that wanted to go talk to them, but I didn’t want to appear to be some sort of groupie or something. They were on the couches in the vestibule, and I was just past the inner doorway by the bar. I played coy for a while, hoping they’d see me, but eventually when they wandered closer to replace their Paceña bottles with fresh ones, I tapped Gonz on the shoulder.

I expected a very cool, reserved response, but he actually got quite excited to see me. When I touched his shoulder, he slowly turned my direction, but upon recognizing me gave a little skip-like hop in my direction and gave me a hug.

This reaction surprised me. I expected something more reserved. More cool, calm, and collected. More “oh, I’m a cool tattoo dude, and you’re some gringa I’ve met twice before so I’ll say ‘hola’ and kiss you on the cheek, but no need to dwell.” But instead I got what felt like a genuinely excited reception. And I think the reason I expected something different, lies in the corporeality I’ve come to associated with the Tito’s guys.

Primarily meaning, Alé’s embodiment. He is calm and collected. Too cool, in many ways. Quiet, but brooding. He stands calmly, as if his feet are fastened to the floor and his chest is magnetized to the sky. His shoulders are back and down, as if he could wipe his hands across his chest and it would seem natural. He is slow and sustained. And a bit strained. He pulls his head back a little. He is tired. He is bored.

Edwin, the owner of Tito’s, is slow too. The way “cuando llegaste?” pulled out of his mouth the first time we saw each other this January, made an impression on me. Like taffy. Sweet and slow. But never overly enthusiastic. 

Diego, my first friend from Tito’s, is slow too, though with flourishes like Gonz, at times (though mostly out of anger). But he is heavy and tied to the ground. Diego, Edwin, & Alé all have a certain slowness. A liquidity. A gravity.

And Gonz in some ways is their opposite. He is jumpy, easily excited. He smiles wide and wags his hands. He moves his head forward when he listens. He has a weight to him. It is not as if he will float away at any moment. But one has the feeling that he could jump without warning, and land sloppily but with ease.

So all of this got the cogs in my brain turning, thinking about bodily movement. Marcel Mauss—perhaps the father of anthropological thought on embodied movement—suggested there is no "natural" way to walk, but only socially mediated and transmitted forms of moving. He called these learned forms of movement the "techniques of the body"-stances, postures, physical habits of body use that are acquired like language and that are equally communicative (1973). Patterns of action “do not just vary with individuals and their imitations, because “they vary especially between societies, educations, proprieties, and fashions, prestiges.” (1979:101). Bodily movement is learned. At times children are explicitly instructed in etiquette or manners, other times it is less explicit (but just as important). Indeed, from Goffman’s “Presentation of the Self” (1959) to Butler’s “performative repetition” (1999), one does not need to look hard to sociological explorations of the ways that bodily movement is not only learned but made to represent aspects of personhood, identity, or social position.

Perhaps one doesn’t need to theorize all this. Perhaps we all understand that the way one moves in the world says something about the person. She who walks with her head held high and a swagger in her step announces her confidence (and so much more), and we all understand. But I take time here to explain, because sometimes it is so seemingly natural that we barely notice. As Bourdieu explains: “When habitus encounters a social world of which it is the product, it finds itself ‘as fish in water’; it does not feel the weight of the water and takes the world about itself for granted” (in Wacquant 2004:43).

But as much as movement may seem natural, both the actor and the observer organize moves into meaningful action. I see the gravity and liquidity of most of the Tito’s guys and I interpret it as gestures toward “badass,” “too cool,” and “aloof.” In my head I hear Snoop Dog playing...

I cannot speak to what their motivations are (consciously constructed or subconsciously created), but David Best writes "One cannot specify an action, as opposed to a purely physical movement, without taking into account what the agent intended, that is there are reasons for, and purposes to, actions" (Best 1974:193). To put it in terms of Clifford Geertz’s interpretive anthropology, we must “sort winks from twitches and real winks from mimicked ones” (1973:16). That is to say, what I know or learn from their actions is not just about looking at physical movement, but includes understanding action in context (Best 1978:79). To understand body movement as socially relevant, its not just about “muscles, bones, and angles of displacement, locomotor patterns, or positional behaviors” (Prost 1996). Its about Bolivian chicos in their twenties, who for various reasons make a living as tattoo artists, entering a gringo bar. Their swagger is laden with the politics of language (they speak Spanish in an English speaking place in a Spanish speaking country). Their speaking patterns are influenced by cosmopolitanism and globalization of travel. It is about globalization of imagery and pop culture. It is about the fact that the sign outside the shop says “Tito’s Tattoos and Piercing,” not “Tito’s Tatuaje y Perforación.” It is about a performance of gender that is utterly globalized in ways that are far from uni-directional. No, it is about performances of gender that range from Megadeath tshirts to VW bugs. And it is about sexuality. It is very very much about sexuality.   

And as these factors mold the body, the body molds the person is as well. Our bodies are intimately implicated in our identities. Our race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, age, religious afiliation, political stances, and whatever else, may be written upon the body, but also mutually constitute the body as well. As Mauss wrote, the body is simultaneously the object upon which culture works, as well as the tool with which that work is achieved (1973).

So then, this all begs the question…do the Tito’s guys conceive tattooing as a mental creative process or as a physical skill? Most likely it’s a combination, but what is privileged? What is heightened and what is obscured? Which is the attractive part? And what does that tell us about embodiment?

Best, David
1974  Expression in Movement and the Arts. Lepus Books, London.

Butler, Judith
1999  Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge.

Geertz, Clifford
1973  Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.    

Goffman, Erving
1959  The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City: Prentice Hall.

Mauss, Marcel
1979  Sociology and Psychology: Essays. Ben Brewster, trans. Boston, MA: Routledge 1973  Techniques of the Body. Economy and Society 22(1):70-88.

Prost, J.H.
1996  Review Essay: Body Language in the Context of Culture. Visual Anthropology 8(2-4):337-43.

Wacquant, Loïc
2004 Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer. New York: Oxford University Press.

  

I am not a person that believes in fate. I do not believe that things happen for reasons. I do not believe there is some greater power orchestrating things. I suppose you could say, religiously, metaphysically, spiritually, cosmically, I believe we are all just some crazy fluke.…And yet, there are moments when I feel like my entire life has conspired to bring me to a certain place.

This time, the place happens to be Parque Laikakota in La Paz, Bolivia. La Paz is an intense city. The thin air shrouds everything in an aura of hyperreality. La Paz spills from its humble neighborhoods in El Alto, on the altiplano, into its Cordillera Real valley, trickling downward to nicer and nicer structures. In Zona Central, what might be called skyscrapers in other contexts, proudly jut up toward the top of the mountain. But they are contained. They are sheltered from passing clouds. And one is left wondering if they are not quite tall enough to pierce the sky, or if it is simply that the whole city is so high the sky has retreated. To the southwest, Zona Sur sinks into the soil with wider avenues and houses with sunny windows. And if you let your gaze wander far enough to that direction, there in all his majesty sits Illimani watching, breathing, proudly flowing.

And on Wednesday, I stood in this spot, on a patch of grass measuring approximately 20 feet by 5 feet, and had my first session training in lucha libre.

I will here forego an explanation of what lucha libre is, exactly, assuming that most readers have either followed for some period of time, or know me personally, so as not to require description, and proceed directly to my point. Though I hadn’t known the path would lead here, somehow it seemed that I’d taken the turn quite literally half a lifetime ago.

In the summer of 1997, at the age of 15, I started hanging with a different crowd. They were no less nerdy, no less marginal, no less campy than my usual crew. They did things like play Magic: the Gathering, and sip coffee in the smoking section of Denny’s until curfew, discussing what each of the talking Reservoir Dogs action figures should say. (“Why do I have to be Mr. Pink?” was the only one ever consensed upon). They did things like read Les Miserables twice a year, or and invent amusing contraptions for the use of illicit substances. They watched Noggin late into the night and could quote Shakespeare and George Lucas equally well. 

But mostly, on Monday nights, they watched wrestling. Now these were the days when WWE was still WWF and ECW and WCW still put up a fight. On Monday nights, there was not just RAW to be seen, but several channels through which to flip back and forth. And I generally was not all that excited about any of this. Sure, one can view televised professional wrestling in the US as a soap opera, but I never really liked soap opera’s to begin with. I was mostly just there for the Burritos as Big as your Head.

And then, in the summer of 1998, it all changed. I wasn’t there that day, but someone pulled some old mattresses into the back yard, Brett grabbed the video camera, and the FUW was born. Yes, what eventually became the Federation of United Wrestlers was a few guys, tossing each other around on discarded bedroom furniture. 

I wasn’t there that day, but I did make it to what some might consider the first “official” FUW show, Halloween Hellfire. The mattresses were pulled out again, but this time with ladders and steel chairs involved. And then, someone offered to pay. I was just a high school senior but I sat in the basement rec room of that state university dormitory anxiously awaiting my friends to enter through black curtains with fog spilling everywhere. Still using the mattresses, they had used the support poles in the room as ring posts, giving the whole set up a more legitimate look than it had on the farm. It wasn’t long after that Dre happened upon FUW and brought along with him his ring. Now it was a real operation. And from that point on, collecting money for the shows was customary. But this also turned into into work. Now, no one was quitting any jobs or anything, but the weekly meetings at Denny’s (after Monday night RAW, of course) were mandatory. 

The FUW was eventually shut down by the State of Illinois, but they lasted 5 years and along the way they produced over 30 shows, were the family to 65 wrestlers, including one who still wrestlers professionally, and not once did a speck of rust collect on the Steel Afro.

Now, granted, I am not to be counted among those 65, (though I did once, as Japan the Bear, get knocked down inside the ring), but in some ways I think the FUW was an important step in my process to eventually becoming a world famous luchadora (note sarcasm). From them I learned the greats, Mick Foley, Triple H, Vince McMahon, and Eddie Guerrero. I knew who Hulk Hogan was long before. I learned the process. The booking, the practicing, the trust involved. I learned the showmanship. And I learned about what it was like to see something begin small and grow. I learned about shooting and marks. I learned about spectacle. And I learned what a faceless jobber is. 

I am a 30 year old, semi-in-shape woman, who once could do a backflip, but can now barely pull off a cartwheel. I attended acting classes at a top US university, before frustratedly deciding I had absolutely no theatrical talent. I have background, but it would be far from the truth to say that lucha libre will be an easy fit. And yet, somehow, every time I hear a word like hurricanrana I'm transported back to that gravel driveway that housed a wrestling ring, right off the main thoroughfare of a nondescript midwestern town. And I know I can do this. I know, somehow, I'm the right person for this job. So bring it on, Super Catch. I'm ready.

Titanes del Ring events are some of the most popular tourist attractions in La Paz, but tourism in Bolivia is not a big business compared to many surrounding nations. Bolivia garners roughly 300,000 tourists per year, while neighboring Perú attracts more than two million. So Bolivia tends to retain a sense of being somewhat “undiscovered” for many travelers. In fact, one day when I asked some Ekko hostel bar workers [some of whom I have discussed previously] how much of the “Gringo Trail” they had been through, Dr. Joe declared “Bolivia’s the best. No one even knows where Bolivia is!” [Indeed, the wikipedia entry I linked here doesn't even include La Paz on its list of Gringo Trail "highlights."]

The Andean Secrets advertisements and the Cholitas Luchadoras themselves appeal to travelers’ sense of adventure, inviting them to experience something “crazy” and unpredictable; something unknown at home. Many backpackers related that other young tourists had told them that there would be fireworks, “midget tossing,” and “women on women action” as part of the show. These comments, along with those suggesting the show might be “brutal,” “disturbingly real,” or “crazy” suggest that some travelers hope for something understandable, yet beyond the bounds of what can be found in travel locations closer to home. 

This desire for adventure became strikingly apparent to me on a bus ride in 2009, when I heard a group of Dutch young men recommend a specific tour guide to some women who were leaving La Paz for the Peruvian Amazon the next day. The men, who had just come from the Amazon, suggested that the women ask for their previous tour guide because “He’s the best. He’s crazy.” They then recounted stories of him throwing a piranha at his wards and picking up pythons. I also heard tourists boarding a bus to a wrestling match joke about combining Peruvian and Bolivian “cultural” experiences; they envisioned holding a rave at Machu Picchu that featured midget wrestling and strobe lights. 

Not surprisingly, by far the most popular tourist attraction in La Paz was riding a bike down “death road” [which I have written on briefly, before]. Officially known as Yungas [Jungle] Road, this 38-mile road leads from La Paz to the city of Coroico. It was built as a single lane width gravel road in the nineteen-thirties, and includes some overhangs of 1800 feet with no guardrails. It is estimated that between two hundred and three hundred vehicles have plummeted off the road, leading the Inter American Development Bank to bestow on it the title of World’s Most Dangerous Road. Particularly hazardous portions of the road were closed in 2006, leaving it open to biking tours. Despite the fact that about 20 cyclists have died on the road since 1998, it remains popular because of the amazing scenery it provides, and the simple sentiment that “you can’t find this anywhere else.” 

There was a seeming refusal on the travelers’ parts to believe that the death road was truly dangerous, despite the fact that several people per month were sent to the hospital after minor falls, and one woman even died while biking during my time in La Paz. Cater argues that “the prime motivation for the practice of adventure is thrill and excitement.” Beck further suggests that even though adventure experiences are understood within a discourse of risk, tourists that engage in them have no desire to actually be harmed. Instead, it is the unpredictability of the experience that attracts them. As one German woman proclaimed on facebook, “Today I survived the World’s Most Dangerous Road. Just like 50 other people every day.” Much like exotic animals, crazy tour guides, and death-defying bike rides, “cholitas” wrestling fulfills the need for an epic and hazardous journey into the unknown exotic continent of South America and legendary stories to tell other backpackers and friends at home, upon return.

Cholita wrestling is quite obviously a scripted spectacle and further, clearly resembles the exhibition wrestling of the United States most travelers have seen numerous times on television. No matter what travelers expect on the bus ride, once the show starts they discover “its far too WWF” to be unknown. So while tourists are often motivated by a desire for unknown experiences, something more nuanced motivates travelers to see the Cholitas Luchadoras events. The Andean Secrets flyer in fact clearly depicts an audience made up of gringos and gringas, with piercings, brightly colored hair and sunglasses. 

In this case, “the unknown” creates a focus primarily on difference as something to be accumulated. Whether situated in natural landscape formations or in the local people, difference is there to be collected in the form of stories and pictures, primarily shared with friends at home through facebook posts and compared with other travelers when flipping through previous pictures on their digital cameras in the hostel bar. 

I concur with Adler’s assertion that travel is a “performed art” which includes the anticipation and daydreaming that precede the journey as well as reflection during and after the journey. Molz points out that these performances include the consumption of symbolic items that allow travelers to perform and recognize each other as legitimate. Indeed, while tourism may expose travelers to “traditional” cultural practices, their consumption behaviors are motivated by the desire to possess a symbol of those cultural practices. And while an ugly llama sweater may be requisite attire in the Ekko bar, consumption also includes the accumulation of non-commodified symbols, such as photographs or the identification bracelets from hostels that many travelers collect on their wrists. The photographs, including those of the Cholitas Luchadoras, function as a friendly competition of evidencing the strange, unusual, exotic, and “risky” things travelers have seen on their trips. 

Adler, Judith
1989 Travel as Performed Art. American Journal of Sociology, 94:1366-1391.

Beck, Ulrich
1992  Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Cater, Carl I.
2006  Playing with risk? participant perceptions of risk and management implications in adventure tourism. Tourism Management 27(2):317-325.

Molz, Jennie Germann
2006  Cosmopolitan Bodies: Fit to Travel and Traveling to Fit. Body Society 12:1-21.

14 May 2011

The first time I took a minibus to Villa Victoria, a working-class neighborhood of La Paz, Bolivia, I left my camera at home. Though I was attending something of a spectacle there, I had been warned by several people not to take anything of value. A little nervous about going to a place more commonly known as “Villa Balazos” [Gunshot Neighborhood], I begged R to come along with me. We were headed for the Coliseo, but neither of us knew exactly where it was to be found. After consulting with almost every other bus rider, we hopped off at a corner and walked up the hill two blocks. Still not really knowing where to go, we stopped in a tienda and R asked the way again. We made a right turn, and then followed the sound of “Eye of the Tiger” down the street, where we found a long line of Bolivians waiting in the cold outside a gate. It was early winter, and at almost 4000 meters above sea level very little was worth waiting outside in the cold.

I was still trying to get over a bit of a head cold (the kind that never really seems to go away in the Andes), so I was relieved when we were eventually let into the Coliseo, a large barren sports arena. However, as one quickly learns in highland Bolivia, going inside never really does much to warm you up. There’s no indoor heating, and in such a large, concrete space, there is little difference in temperature. At least inside, the walls block the wind. The arena—about the side of a high school basketball court in the US—had massive concrete bleachers on one side. We entered from this direction and went down two levels to sit down. Now the cold was permeating my body both from the air and up from the concrete bleachers through my but.

In the center of the floor was a six-sided amateur-looking wrestling ring. Used to a simple four-sided ring I wondered if there was an advantage to having two extra sides, or if there was some more practical reason LIDER (Luchadores Independientes de Enorme Riesgo) had decided on six. Perhaps that just happened to be the ring they had a chance to buy. In the midst of my contemplation, Carlos approached us and we shook hands. He and R discussed a bloggers’ conference they had both attended recently. Having been convinced for several months that Carlos was angry with me, I was tentative about what to say. Of course, I am often annoyed by him, but have tried to maintain some semblance of a friendship for research purposes. Carlos and I exchanged quick updates, since we hadn’t seen each other in two years, and then he was on his way, back down to the floor to presumably do something important backstage.

The show, billed as a “family event,” was set to start at 7pm, but at 8:15 we were still patiently waiting in the stands. Around 8:30, Ali Farak, a bearded Bolivian man with a slight frame dressed in a white track suit emerged from behind the curtain leading to backstage. He jumped into the ring as the official referee of the event, and the evening’s matches began.

The first fight was between two men; one in a shiny gold spandex outfit with red embellishments, and the other in a Native North American appearing costume. R referred to him as “el Apache” several times, but he also seemed to often use “Apache” often when asking about Native North Americans in general.

After Apache achieved a decisive win, and another 15 minute break in the action, two more characters emerged from behind the curtain. Hombre Lobo [Wolfman] and the Momia [Mummy] came out to do their usual head-butting style of wrestling. The highlight of this was their frequent forays into the bleachers where kids would jump up and run away with high pitched screams echoing. What impressed me most was the parents. Working class Aymara men in Starter jackets that had originally been owned by US high school students in the early 1990s, and women wearing cotton polleras and thick sweaters, would grab the child’s hand and run away from Hombre Lobo along with them.

The other match that seemed directly created for the children in the audience was between Batman and Bob Esponga [Sponge Bob Square Pants]. Batman, in this pair, played the rudo, cheating several times, and pushing kids away who tried to get his autograph. Bob Esponga, dressed in a giant yellow spongy square that looked like an expensive Halloween costume, waved at the kids and gave a few hugs on his way to the ring. Batman eventually won the match, thanks to his unjust moves, but the kids’ hearts were won by Bob instead.

This highlight of the evening for me, however, was a match between luchadoras. Benita and Carmen Rojas entered the ring and hugged, obviously showing signs of friendship. However, the Farak started pulling their braids so that it seemed as if the other luchadora had done it. They eventually started wrestling. The matched turned into a 6 person brawl with 3 luchadoras on one side and Juanita with some other men on the other side. As Carlos reported in his blog,

Carmen Rojas enfrento a Benita, no hubo ganador pues en la contienda se involucraron el Hijo de Alí Farak, Sub Zero, y después de las exageradas trifulcas ingreso Juanita al Ring de 6 postes con el objetivo de colocar orden pero las cosas cambiaron pues al final se hizo un desafio de “tres contra tres” entre varones y mujeres que será develado el sábado 21 de mayo en el Coliseo de Villa Victoria.

Carmen Rojas faced Benita, but there was no winner in the contest because it involved the son of Ali Farak, Sub Zero, and after exaggerated scuffles Juanita entered the 6 posted ring with the aim of restoring order. But things changed and in the end it became a challenge of "three against three" between men and women to be unveiled on Saturday May 21 at the Coliseo de Villa Victoria.

It eventually ended with Juanita saying how much better she was than the others, and she’d show them next week. One of the other luchadoras eventually took the microphone and appealed to the audience: “Somos con el publico! Somos mujeres de polleras y somos con ustedes!” [We are with the audience! We are women of the pollera and we are with you!]

Exhibition wrestling is a phenomenon that has grown in different ways in disparate regions. It began in US army barracks, quickly being picked up by promoters, and expanded across the US. A few decades later, Mexico City had adopted its own more acrobatic style. From there it spread across Latin America, and to other regions, with Argentina, Japan, and Brazil being among the most prominent examples. Bolivia, conversely, is not a prominent world example of lucha libre. Though lucha libre is a popular pastime in cities like La Paz, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz, it has not been televised since 2001. Indeed even Bolivians see it as derrivative of other countries´ lucha libre. One fan told me “[lucha libre] is passion in Mexico, religion in Japan, and a joke in the United States, and here [in Bolivia] unfortunately, it suffers horrible stagnation and lacks creativity…It lacks vision of promoters, and the scripts, and stories, and characters are plagiarized from Mexico and the United States. Even the international lucha libre website, Superluchas, recently published a guest blog alleging that fans are tired of all the wrestling companies in Bolivia because they lack personality and plagiarize names, masks, and teams.

And yet, the lucha libre of La Paz and El Alto has something that can´t be found elsewhere. It is, as one fan says, “obviously our contribution to the world of wrestling.” And that is the Cholitas Luchadoras. One might even suggest that this is not only Bolivia's contribution to the “world of wrestling” but also to the world at large, given the fact that Bolivia is a country that does not have a well-developed international image. In contrast to neighbor Perú’s annual 2 million tourists, Bolivia garners only 300,000. It lacks iconic places and events other Latin American countires boast, such as Perú’s Macchu Picchu, Guatamala's Chichen Itzu, and Brazilian Carnivale. It is landlocked and has the poorest economy in South America. The indigenous president, Evo Morales, is one of the most vocal speakers in the world on issues like climate change and indigenous rights. Yet, he is often portrayed as simply a Hugo Chavez minion. As one traveler told me "No one even knows where Bolivia is. The only thing it’s known for is maybe the cocaine." Indeed Morales´s recent challenge of coca´s inclusion in the United Nations 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the capital city La Paz´s reputation for clandestine cocaine bars, clearly belies the country’s embarassed assocation with drug abuse and proud (for some) association with coca cultivation. 

But the Cholitas Luchadoras are becoming another visible symbol of Bolivia. Cholitas, the diminutive of cholas, are already a central figure on postcards throughout the region. More an essentialization than a real “identity” (see Weismantel’s Cholas and Pishtacos), cholas are often envisioned as the traditional mothers of the nation, thought to be rural indigenous women, stuck in time (see Gill’s Precarious Dependencies). The luchadoras are only one of the most recent incarnations of the chola character, joining young women dancing in parades and festivals, dessert brand ambassadors in upscale La Paz supermarkets, and politically active drag performers. 

The luchadoras, however, have received far more attention than these other cholita incarnations. The Guardian has covered them in online video segments, and even newsmedia from Venezuela and Chile have given them attention. At a recent lucha libre event in La Paz a renowned Chilean journalist and his young producer trolled the audience asking opinions about lucha libre. When I reluctantly agreed to answer their questions, they repeatedly pressured me to talk about what I thought of the luchadoras. 

So the audience´s and even broader Paceño population´s suggestions that the luchadoras are the "pride" of La Paz may reflect their desire for international recognition. But this is not just because cholitas are "traditional" and unique to the Andes. The icon of the chola is deeply endowed with characteristics seen as part of Paceño identity….

Today marks the 4 year anniversary of the day I read this.

That's right, for 4 years i dreamed of the day I might see the "cholas" wrestling. I hoped to see the power of revolution in performance. I anticipated moralization of gender and race. I expected the power of the pollera would be manifest in the ring.

On sunday, I took a little tourist bus to la Ceja en El Alto, paid my 80 Bs., shivered, and watched. My previous hopes were not quite realized. Now, don't get me wrong, i am not entirely disappointed. But what I found was more tourist spectacle than local phenomenon (and I wonder if half the local phenomenon is coming to see the crazy gring@s watch the event). And most of women's empowerment seemed to come from demasculinizing men: pulling down their pants, forcing them to wear skirts, etc. Of course, the men retaliated, at times by kissing them (what's that say about sexual violence?).

So the luchadoras are not quite the feminists i had hoped (though, this does not surprise me entirely). but i've also found a lovely little anarchist feminist group. Now, I just have to figure out how this all fits together...