For two cities who share so many of the same elements – indigenous people in the streets, selling embroidered blouses and friendship bracelets; an impervious and snottily racist upper-middle class in overly tight clothes and too much makeup; tourism of the quaint-colonial-Mexico type and the revolutionary-Thai-fisherman-pant type – San Cristobal de las Casas and Oaxaca could not be more different.
Reading nearly any article about the Zapatistas, one of the classic stunners you’ll come across is that as late as the 1960’s, Mayans had to step off the sidewalks of San Cristóbal to let white Mexicans pass. Perhaps somewhat like Mississippi or Johannesberg, other places where racism smells like raw meat in the streets and is still advertised in slightly more subtle (but hardly ashamed) displays of disgust with the other and pride in one’s own, San Cristóbal wears its racism on its sleeve. It is easy to think after going there that Oaxaca is somehow “better,” but that would be to fall into the old U.S vs. South Africa or Mississippi vs. Chicago argument that simply because something is buried or repressed it is somehow less present.
Still, after traveling to South Africa and after traveling to San Cristóbal, I have come to believe that there is something to be said for social norms that stipulate against public rants against “the blacks” or “the indigenous.” There is a different, less charged, less hateful social vibe. San Cristóbal’s streets contain a strange energy of estrangement and prickly, cautious mutual avoidance. People keep to their own place – their own race – and those places and races are much more clearly marked than in Oaxaca.
On our first morning in San Cristóbal, we had a number of experiences that become symbols, useful metonymically to get a larger representative picture of the place.
Taking advantage of the wireless at The Italian Coffee Company, a soulless Starbucks replica with even worse coffee and blaring techno at 8 a.m., I grabbed an outdoor table and caught up on emails. Across the street, a woman in a dark, cramped store selling indigenous goods – woven sarongs and leather belts, bright scarves and blankets – talked about “the indigenous.” “The indigenous this, the indigenous that” – I couldn’t hear exactly what she was saying about them, because her voice rose on “indigenous” and fell afterwards. What was obvious was that she was not one of them, with her smooth white skin marked by a slightly olive tone, and neither was the man she was talking to. Later, we’d find out that the main pedestrian street in San Cristóbal, Real Guadeloupe, used to be devoted nearly entirely to shops like this, run by mestizo San Cristóbal merchants who bought up indigenous goods at cutthroat prices and sold them for much more. Now, it’s overtaken by European-style restaurants and groceries, wine and tapas bars, cafes, tiny shops selling Zapatista postcards and jewelers with big glass cases of amber and jade.
We were all skeptical of San Cristóbal at first, with the possible exception of Mauricio, who had already lived and worked in Chiapas and was more familiar with the vibe or more inured to it, having spent much of his time in nearby Zapatista communities. Susy, Jorge and I had all come briefly and had the same reaction – get me the hell out of here.
Meandering uphill towards the church perched on a cerro on the city’s northern flank, I stopped for an orange juice. A vendor was tucked into a corner of an intersection, his cart piled with oranges and rinds and small plastic cups. I ordered a ten-peso cup.
Just as the man began to slice the oranges in two, several cops came rushing up out of nowhere.
“No, primo, ya te dijé, no puedes estar aquí, no tienes permiso para estar aquí,” said one, a fresh-faced white guy with freckles and the self-righteousness of an American city councilman.
“Ya, ya me muevo,” said the vendor, trying to placate the cop, “dejame hacer esto y ya me muevo –”
- but the cop was having none of it.
“No, primo,” he said, “ya, vamos, vamos,” his hand on the corner of the man’s cart, already starting to push, “sabes que no puedes estar aquí. Vamonos.”
We watched in shock, never having observed such a thing in Oaxaca, whose streets are filled with orange juice and elote and tamale and coffee vendors in the morning. The man began pushing his cart and I walked onwards, putting the ten pesos in my pocket.
“That,” Susy said, “is why I don’t like San Cristóbal.”
We shook the incident off with a bit of incredulity and continued climbing gradually up towards the church.
Later, in early afternoon when the sky was getting hazy and the hungover hippies were crawling out of their haunts in search of bagels, we began searching for a bar to watch the soccer game between Mexico and Holland.
A few inquisitive rounds of inquiry pointed to the Tequila Zoo (pronounced by the locals as one word totally indistinguishable from the two separate English words: “tay-kee-laaaah-so”) as the ideal futbol-watching joint of San Cristóbal.
There, we settled in with a round of beers and limes for what promised to be a devastating match, with Mexico advancing towards the goal and then fumbling around for twenty minutes before ultimately taking a paltry shot straight into the goalie’s arms. It didn’t end up being quite as bad as it appeared in the first half, when the bar was feel of groans and shouts and hair-pulling as Holland took shot after shot, but it was stressful, with us going through plate after plate of limes with our nervous squeezing.
Still, the most interesting phenomenon in the Tequila Zoo wasn’t la Seleccion Mexicana but the table to the left of us. It was full of serious fresas – not the kind with the cheap heels sipping watery margaritas at cheesy bars in Oaxaca, but the kind with thousand-dollar Gucci bags and some real cash rolling in somewhere. I tried to imagine where. Cattle ranches on the Chiapas-Guatemala border? Coffee plantations? Drugs? All of the above? Was these the “San Cristóbal arrogancy” Carlos Monsívais mentioned in his essay on the Zapatistas?
They dominated the waitstaff, who fluttered nervously around their table and ignored the rest of us entirely. They ordered Coca Light after Coca Light, sometimes a Manzana Lift, with a fresh glass each time. No booze, which was creepy. Then plates and plates of overpriced botanas, which they nibbled at. A girl with the smooth pasty skin of the rich arrived and kissed a man with slicked-back hair and designer sunglasses. Who were these people? How did they coexist with the Mayans in the streets and the dreamy travelers with dreads and ambar necklaces?
I asked an anthropologist friend of Susy’s later, but she shrugged and said she didn’t know. She threw out the possibility that they were from Tuxtla; apparently, San Cristóbal is becoming a boutique destination for Tuxtla’s monied classes, and one potential plan for the city is to turn it into a walled-off gringo/wealthy Mexican compound akin to that of the horrendous-sounding San Miguel de Allende. Lots of people from Tuxtla flood San Cristóbal on the weekends to eat pricey European-style pasta and shop – but this game had been on a Wednesday.
The fresas at the Tequila Zoo were one of the many jarring things that both seemed to fit and seemed utterly bizarre about the city and about Chiapas overall. There, travelers on a circuit of revolutionary, impoverished, romantic Latin America work up some righteous solidarity with the oppressed, sip their fresh-squeezed beet juices, roam the town in huaraches, hob-knob at outdoor European cafes (“European boutique,” an Italian friend called San Cristóbal with ironic disdain), drink, and work on their gnarly down-with-the-people white dreads while the impeccably dressed, light-skinned San Cristóbal elite seem to continue much as they always have, probably in collusion with the enormous military presence in Chiapas, running their ganaderos (cattle farms) and coffee estates and drug operations (a detested lawyer convicted of collaborating with drug traffickers, recently kidnapped and still unaccounted for, has a ranch in Chiapas) and the Zapatistas, whose proud metaphor for themselves is their movement is that of the slow-moving snail, abide their time, inching forward and back, forward and back.
San Cristóbal grew on me this time around, but it still makes me itchy. European boutique chic, revolutionary tourism, classic colonial repression, and indigenous uprisings make for an odd and vaguely nauseous mix and one that, in spite of the mesmerizing power of the nearby hills and their quiet pine forests, of the fog in the mornings, of the humbling and compelling presence of the Zapatistas who continue to calmly defy the constant attempts to commodify, cheapen and co-opt their movement, I still can’t get comfortable with. So I return to Oaxaca and its maddening politics, its annihilating light and roasting dry heat, its macho construction workers, its unparalleled food and familiar faces, with relief.
10 Comments
I love the first photo!!!
It’s an odd juxtaposition of you with your laptop at a quasi Starbucks disdaining the Eurotrash/style that you get in San Cristobal, while all the while, across the street you could have given your custom to an NGO that has a restaurant and hosts cooperatives… My experience of Oaxaca is that they’d run all the indigenous out of the centro to please tourists and your ilk, but perhaps that’s changed since the troubles there. You did get it right about the racism – but it’s endemic in Mexico – “cara de indio” is a fine insult used by the educated class, and the education sucks all around, even more so for poor people.
Interesting, Berynice – my description of the style wasn’t “Eurotrash” but rather European boutique, two rather distinct things. And I don’t disdain it, I simply find it a very odd juxtaposition with the types of travelers found in San Cristobal who seem to consider themselves loftily revolutionary. Of course there are some who are doing great things, and I respect that, but San Cristobal also seems to me a place where lots of travelers go to hang out at wine and tapas bars talking about the revolution. There’s a lot of hippie condescension and pretension, which seems to me strange and ironic considering the blatant racism in the town (far more blatant than is felt in Oaxaca, where I’ve never once heard people talking scornfully about “the indigenous” even if, as I say above, there is probably the same degree of racism here) and the fact that one of San Cristobal’s obvious draws for these same revolutionary travelers is its European boutique style.
There’s nothing wrong with hanging out at a wine and tapas bar, or with European boutique, per se, but in San Cristobal it so often seems paired with this ironic attitude of smug righteousness.
As far as the NGO that has a restaurant and hosts cooperatives, if you’re talking about Tierra Adentro, I did go there and their wireless wasn’t working. There seemed to be few places with wireless, and very few open before ten a.m., which is why I got stuck at Italian Coffee (although you might have picked that up from the wording – “taking advantage of the wireless…”) As far as “running all of the indigenous out of the centro” I’m not sure if you’ve ever come to Oaxaca, but that’s obviously not true and has not been true before or after 2006.
Great photos
I don’t know why it took me so long to discover your blog, but I love your writing too!
I enjoyed your little story but what you talk about is nothing new, it is happening all over the world. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY. You want to talk about the blacks in the 50’s. I live in San Cris and have some great relationships with indiginous kids. You come here for a week or so and think you have the whole thing wired. The Indians have a struggle and they will overcome in time, they need to be treated with some respect and they are fighting to gain that. The insident you had with the street vendor is very isolated. I have been here for 16 months and have been all over San Cris and have never seen anything like that. As far as rich snooty people, whats new, they are everywhere. They would probably even look down on you and me for that matter.
All I can say is if you ever come here again spend your time riding the colectivos and walking in different neighborhoods and see the people.
I agree with Bart. I am an Gringo and I lived in San Cristobal for several months with my “semi-fresa” novia(from DF) and never experienced anything like what you described. Snapshots are good when taking pictures, but don’t tell the whole story when describing a town and its culture. Wealthy fresa-esque people are all over the world and tend to get the attention of waitstaff and can be obnoxious. I love how you go on and make vast assumptions about how the people earned their wealth. You really should hop off your “holier than thou” horse and try and relax, take in the scenery with less judgment. Believe me, I would love to have visited San Cristobal 10 years ago, but I don’t have a time machine. Should we put walls around all cities with charm and only let the “right” people visit who will bring the “correct” type change to the town…sounds like Arizona if you ask me;) Here is to hoping you find the super cool and undiscovered region that is not over-run by the wrong people. Too bad you couldn’t take in some of the charm that is unique to San Cristobal and instead let yourself get all wrapped up in criticizing an amazing little town. I bet you would never guess that my fresa girlfriend is studying indigenous cultures of the region and sustainable development at the local University in San Cristobal…yes, a fresa, skipping out on family money and helping the indigenous. Sorry for my tone, but I hope you will open your mind a bit more about San Cristobal and the rest of the world for that matter. Good luck!
Hey Mateo -
I don’t think I make any “vast assumptions” about how people earned their wealth. Here’s precisely what I say: “I tried to imagine where. Cattle ranches on the Chiapas-Guatemala border? Coffee plantations? Drugs? All of the above? Was this the “San Cristóbal arrogancy” Carlos Monsívais mentioned in his essay on the Zapatistas?” Then I ask, “Who were these people?”
I am questioning what their story is – I don’t pin them down definitively. None of these, in Chiapas, are terribly vast assumptions. Much of the wealth there does come from cattle and coffee farming, historically, and in present times there is a great deal of drug running. Much of this benefits, as always, from the exploitation and repression of the indigenous. To me these historical realities seem oppressively present in the city. Your girlfriend – and other “fresas” – could easily be exceptions in terms of their attitudes towards indigenous people and their pasts. However, that doesn’t change the fact that there is a very charged dynamic in San Cristobal between the wealthy landowners and the upper (predominantly white, and historically exploitative) classes and the indigenous people. That dynamic is palpable in the streets. It’s all well and good that your girlfriend is “skipping out on family money and helping the indigenous” but there’s an immense amount of privilege in the decision to do so, and there doesn’t seem to be much recognition of that in San Cristóbal, where much of the attitude is of a mutual pat-ourselves-on-the-back-look-what-we’re-doing-for-the-indigenous vibe, over wine and tapas. As for San Cristóbal’s “charm,” much of it seems to me to come from colonial architecture and European boutique restaurants and cafes, the vast majority of which are populated by revolutionary travelers, tourists, and expats paying 25 pesos for a beer – this seems tremendously ironic to me, but there doesn’t seem to be much awareness or criticism in San Cristobal of that irony. There is, in fact, defensive and self-righteous justification of it.
The same thing happens in Oaxaca, mind you – I definitely pay 25 pesos for my beer at hipster bars here and you find the same dynamics between wealthy business owners and politicians (the political class, let’s say) and indigenous people and the people living in barrios outside the city. But here, I think there are a few differences – you don’t get the same condescending “we’re helping the indigenous” attitude you get in San Cristóbal, where people seem very smug and satisfied with themselves (and very critical of other people) for expressing solidarity with the indigenous while they eat their hand-pressed Italian pasta, without a sliver of awareness of the aforementioned irony, and you don’t get the same blatant racism. I’ll give you another example – a little indigenous girl came to sell us bracelets, and my friend gave her a taco. She grabbed a lime from a plate to squeeze on it. Instantly the waitress came and asked, “do you want me to change that plate?” in a rush. Never, in three years in Oaxaca, has such a thing happened. And things like that happened constantly in San Cristobal. The older, wealthy white woman with gold sandals who bought orange juice from a vendor and whose friend said, “No, I’m not touching that” in disgust, refusing to even go near the vendor. Things like this seem to me extremely bizarre about San Cristobal. Could be just my perspective – but I have heard the same thing from many other friends (Mexican and American) who’ve gone there.
hi sarah. it seems silly that of all the things you’ve talked about, i’m only replying to this: i just want to know why you think it’s ironic for the young, revolutionary travelers to pay 25 pesos for beers. that’s about $US2. i live in nyc and it’s very rare that you find a bar selling $2 beer. if they can afford beer and food that’s cheaper in price than in most of their hometowns in europe or the u.s. it i don’t think it’s ironic or self-righteous. it’s almost as though you’re suggesting that anything less than living within the means of the local population is somehow selling out.
that said, i’ve only been here for 3 days and i have definitely noticed that the different classes or categories of people stick to themselves. i’m staying near that the graffitied wall in your first picture and i’ve noticed very few whites until i make a right turn at guadalupe. yesterday i saw a lady on the street that couldn’t get a taxi to stop for her because apparently she looked like she couldn’t afford it. (or maybe the taxi driver didn’t want people to see her stepping out of the car in fear that others would wait for a “cleaner” cab to come by.)
(off-topic rant: i feel like an outsider here because a) i’m very overweight and the locals definitely give me crazy looks and b) i don’t mix well with the european travelers. i’m not being all rah-rah american here, but the euro-hippies don’t seem all that nice to you if you’re not dreadlocked.)
ps, i really like you’re writing and i’m going to keep reading it.
Thanks for reading, ralphjunior. To clarify, I don’t think it’s self-righteous and ironic for travelers to pay 25 pesos for beers, but rather for them do so while at the same time bragging about how they’re helping the indigenous and they’ve escaped these wider power systems (neoliberalism, corporate capitalism, etc) which are the real bad guys. The irony is in the self-congratulatory attitude, and the sense that somehow one is really on the same plane of understanding and solidarity with the indigenous, while at the same time drinking a beer and eating a baguette that are way, way out of the price range of most indigenous people. The very fact that travelers can live for much less in San Cristobal and have a much nicer, more comfortable lifestyle (which is still very far from the means of most people in Chiapas) means that they are part of the power dynamics they condemn. I don’t think that means travelers should live off of a dollar a day in impoverished conditions, but I do think that they should be aware of the fact that they come from and live in very different circumstances from most people in Chiapas, and they enjoy different privileges. I elaborate on this in my latest post, above. Thanks!
For an excellent piece that further discusses this theme, check this out: http://www.casacollective.org/story/reflections/reflections-complicity