Friday, March 25, 2011

#27: Behind the Scenes--Culture Notes in Mexico

One topic I enjoy exploring in this blog is the idea of culture.  Culture can be defined three ways: 1) "the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc."; 2) "the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic or age group", or 3) "the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another".  (Thanks dictionary.com!)


But really, culture is about a group of people's way of life.  It's in how we dress, talk, act, think, eat, and live.  Regions have different culture from nations from countries from continents.  Obviously, American culture has pervaded the globe.  As people in general, we tend to be most comfortable in situations that mimic our own culture and ideals, so Americans in particular enjoy traveling to other destinations for something "new" and "interesting" while maintaining a little piece of something comfortable and safe.  This is something that I've been working on a lot while living abroad.  My goal isn't to merge 100% into another culture, but to become a part of it and let it become a part of me as well.  Living in Mexico has been a good place to start.


I. Language
Obviously, people in Mexico speak Spanish.  But did you realize that there are dozens of indigenous languages (the ones spoken by the native people, or "Indians" if that's easier for you, before the Europeans knew the world was round) in this country alone?  And of those dozens, there are HUNDREDS of dialects--phrases and sounds and ideas that vary in a language from place to place.  To relate:  Someone from Texas speaks differently than someone from New York.  Not only in accent (the sound of the voice), but also in the words and phrases the person uses.  Like how some people call it a "buggy", or a "basket", or a "shopping cart"--that's dialect.  Same thing, different terms.


Mexican dialect is different from, say, Argentinian dialect.  There are vocab words that I learned in Spanish classes that are not very popular here, or mean different things.  So along with learning the language, I've picked up a dialect of people from this region.  I say "Que padre!" when I find something cool...  but other Spanish speakers may not.  And back to the indigenous languages:  In our area, many people speak or understand Maya.  I've learned a few words as well, which make for helpful slang in this region.  There are also lots of Americanized words in Spanish, like "befe", which comes from BFF=best friend forever.  


II. Race, Ethnicity, & Cultural "Preferences"
Living in another country for a while gives you a COMPLETELY different understanding of race and ethnicity.  Although I can't exactly say that America is a post-racial society--race is still a VERY divisive and sometimes controversial topic--we have it a lot better than a lot of other cultures.  It's not even about direct discrimination, in fact.  I have never been treated unfairly or disrespectfully for being black in a Latinamerican culture... but it is about preference.  If you look at an ad on Mexican TV, the actors look like they come out of Central Casting in Hollywood.  The woman will be fair with light eyes and light, preferably blonde hair, size 6 clothes at the most, and about 5'6.  The man will be nearly 6ft tall, slightly darker hair and maybe eyes, with a muscular, "masculine" physique.  They don't look Mexican AT ALL.  


...However, please be aware that not all Mexicans have brown or olive skin, dark hair and eyes, and answer to Juan or Maria.  My host mom, for instance, has brown hair and fair skin, and one of my host sisters is blonde (mostly bottle but some natural highlights).  I've seen Mexican kids with blue or green eyes, blonde, brown or auburn hair, and very fair skin to very dark skin.  Ethnicity here is more complex because of centuries of intermarriage between people of European and indigenous descent.  Most people will tell you their heritage is "mestizo", or mixed, because of these factors.  Of course, there are some people who are almost 100% of European heritage, and others who are almost or definitely 100% indigenous.  


What I'm trying to get at is that in American culture, we feel that the people on TV look like us.  There are fat people, skinny people, blacks, whites, latinos, asians, gays, straights, women, and men (some groups in higher proportions than others).  In Mexican culture, most of the people on TV look like white Americans.  Why?  Because American culture sells.  The same way overweight people are subconsciously attracted to slender people selling diet supplements on TV, Mexicans are subconsciously attracted to more "American" looking people selling an "American" lifestyle on TV.  In fact, most of the world is.  Right now, there are kids all over the world clamoring for toys and clothes that they saw Chris Miller from Ohio wearing in an ad.  


Flip the script:  Let's say a culture that we are exposed to a lot, but are inherently different from, dominated the globe.  Let's pick eastern Asia--China, Japan, Korea.  We use a lot of their electronics, clothes, furniture, whatever in everyday life.  Let's pretend China was the dominant world culture, and when you flipped to channel 6, there was a little Asian princess with almond eyes, straight dark hair, and golden skin telling your kids to buy Froot Loops.  Most of the mannequins in the stores you shopped at were of different body shapes and proportions than you actually saw around you.  The values you grew up with and wanted to instill in your children was being labeled "old school" and more Chinese values and ideas were seen as "progressive".  You go to Thanksgiving dinner, and next to the turkey and mashed potatoes, someone brought a pan of shrimp lo mein and everybody's digging in (with only a few pecks at your casserole, of course).  


It feels odd to be on the other side of the coin, right?  The privilege we have as Americans to be able to find a McDonalds and a cold Coca-Cola no matter where we go (whether you like them or not!) is not available to most, if any, cultures we share this world with (replacing McD's and Coke with two familiar items of their own culture).  


Alright, back to the outline:


III. Social Status
Americans believe in a more fluid idea of social status--that anyone from any background can live the American Dream *cue sparkling lights* with some hard work, moral fiber and dedication.  A perfect example of this was John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil Company (now known as Exxon), and considered to be the richest man in human history (with adjustments for inflation and contemporary cost of living).   He grew up poor and worked odd jobs until he eventually owned one of the largest empires this country's ever seen.  


But in Mexico, it's not that easy.  This goes back to race & ethnicity.  You are pretty much born into your place on the social ladder and it's really, REALLY hard to go up from there.  Part of it came from the European idea that your social status was a birthright, part of it was from the destruction of indigenous culture, making the native people economically dependent on people of European heritage to survive, and part of it is because it's really freaking hard to "be your own man" in Mexico.


Example:  In America, people start businesses every day.  Even little kids run a lemonade stand in the summer.  If you do your homework, there are grants and tax breaks to businesses to help them get started on the way to the American Dream.  If you don't like your job, leave it!  With time, patience and sometimes supplemental training, you can leave an old career path and start a new one.  


In Mexico, that does not happen.  Period.  The end.  Why?  Oh geez.  First, monopolies:  America has laws preventing one company from owning everything in that sector.  If not, Microsoft PCs would be the only computers anyone could buy, and they could declare any price they wanted because there was no competition to drive down costs for the consumer.  In Mexico, most of the monopolies are owned by the government.  Rent a car in Mexico and go buy some gas.  The ONLY gas station in this town is Pemex. Know who owns Pemex?  The feds.  Let's say you found some oil on your property and want to start a gas station in Mexico.  How do you do it?  Trick question, you can't!  The Mexican government will claim eminent domain (because you own the rights to the property but it's in Mexico's borders, therefore it's Mexican property!), use the oil in a Pemex refinery, and if you're lucky, give you a job as a gas station manager.  There are some small businesses here--bakeries, corner stores, boutiques, whatever--but they don't survive for long because either they get squeezed out by corporations, or they have to sell to the same corporations to feed their families--pretty much the same thing.  Oh, and those giant corporations are usually American- or European-owned, which goes right back into Point II from earlier.


Let's say you're a fortunate middle-class Mexican from a hardworking family.  You hate your job and want to start over.  Oh wait, you can't.  In Mexico, you pick a major in high school and knock the pre-req's and "general education requirements" out of the way early.  When you start college/technical school at 16-17, you're ready to start your career at 18-20... and you keep that career for the rest of your life.  Just like in our American economy, jobs are really hard to come by... and if you're lucky enough to have gone to a "preparatorio" (high school) that got you ready for college or vocational training, you don't forfeit that over something silly like job dissatisfaction.  If you want your kid to be a doctor or lawyer, good luck, because there are aptitude tests to determine if your little snowflake is smart enough to make it through those professions--if not, they help them fast track into a different career.  And of course, that's assuming that you even have the money to help your kids get into the dream school that will get them into the pre-med program at college.  The idea of student loan debt is absurd to Mexicans because parents help finance most of the student's education (although most young people work as well).  


But what if your parents weren't able to get you into a nice school with job opportunities?  Some kids have to drop out as early as the third grade (nine years old, y'all...  nine).  They help their families with farmwork, raising animals, or selling goods, services and handcrafts in big cities.  Young men with strong abilities take on backbreaking work in unskilled labor, while others secure a factory job if possible.  Young women try to find jobs as nannies or live-in housekeepers for wealthier families.  And if neither of those pan out, you just try to sell things.  In the centro, there are hundreds of people on the sidewalks selling fruits, flowers, newspapers, candy and gum, cigarettes... anything to turn a buck.  Many of these people are illiterate, and others don't speak that much Spanish because they come from indigenous families that speak Maya or another Indian language--they would have learned Spanish in school, if they were able to attend.  They spend their entire lives struggling, not to get out of poverty, but just to stay alive in it.  I found out from my host mom that the average Mexican factory worker makes about 50 pesos for a 10-hour workday.  $5 USD a day to do labor for 10 hours (don't even think about a union, workman's comp, sick or maternity leave, overtime, or vacation pay)... seven days a week.  That adds up to $35 a week, $140 a month, and $1680 A YEAR.... and I'm assuming a low conversion rate of 10 pesos to $1 (some days it's more like 12 to a dollar).  They actually make less than that.  What your neighbor spends on a specialty latte at Starbucks every day is what a grown man brings home to his family--with pride, because that little bit of change is the difference between living in a shack and living at all.


IV. Family
Congrats, you just made it through the longest, and some of the most depressing, things you will ever read in this blog.  Despite the huge financial and educational gaps between poor- and middle-class people in Mexico, they all have one big thing in common:  family values.


I mentioned in my Barcelona entries that the idea of family is essential to Latino and Hispanic life.  Middle- and upper-class families tend to have less children than poorer families (ironic because the people who can afford to raise a bunch of kids can also afford contraceptive methods).  In a traditional Latin family, much like ours, the mom stays home while the dad works... but much like our families, it's increasingly popular for both parents to work outside the home.  (As of yet, I have never heard of a Latin dad opting to stay home with the kids while the wife works--it's possible, but not very probable.)  


My host family has a "secretaria", or housekeeper, to do a lot of the chores, and her son (who is our houseboy, but we don't really have a title for him) also does odd jobs here.  My host mom is a homemaker, and one of her daughters is too, but her other daughter works full time.  Every day, we all have lunch and usually dinner together.  (Lunch is the biggest meal of the day in Latin countries.)  In the evenings, both of the married daughters and grandkids (and sometimes the husbands) come over for at least an hour to socialize with everyone, before going home to dinner at their own homes.  My host mom's mother, Abuelita, also lives with us.  My host brother is 33 and lives at home too, because traditionally you don't move out of your parents' house unless you have a steady job and/or are married.  In Carlos's case, he works lots of long hours, so it's not financially feasible for him to have a house or apartment of his own if he's hardly ever there.  Mama and Papa each have a personal vehicle, which Carlos uses at will--he hasn't had to buy a car because his job usually picks him up with a work shuttle most days.  My oldest host sister Karla has a car that she often leaves here because she has a company truck (and on days when she uses her car, she parks the truck here).  In a sense, the vehicles are more of a family investment--if you have somewhere to be and a set of keys, you're free to leave as long as the proper owner of the car doesn't have a previous obligation.


My house here is pretty much the center of activity for the family, if you can't tell.  My host dad's twin sister lives 5 blocks away on the same street, and as the matriarch of her family unit, her kids and grandkids congregate there.  Karla and Gabi (my youngest host sister) dont live more than a half hour away (due to traffic, mostly), still here in town.  All of Mama and Papa's relatives live in Merida, and are pretty much a phone call or an invite away.  In traditional Latin culture, there is more emphasis placed on the oldest adults rather than the youngest kids, but more progressive families are already changing that.  


While our kids get huge family turnouts for dance recitals and soccer games, cultural milestones get the most attention here.  My host nephew Tavi had his first communion last weekend, and 200 extended relatives and friends showed up for the private mass and fiesta afterwards.  His little sister Ana Gabriela was also baptized at the same time.  Along with religious rites of passage, most Latina girls have a quinceanera, or quince for short.  Think of the same way we put emphasis on the idea of "sweet sixteen" parties in the states, but at age 15... and merge it with a debutante ball.  A good quince will be announced in a couple local papers, have 100-300 people in attendance (and yes, there are some with attendance of 500 and up), and is pretty much the most important event in a young girl's life before her wedding.  My first week living here, I was looking at a portrait of Karla in a giant white gown with a radiant smile and an elegant hairstyle.  "Is that Karla's wedding portrait?" I asked.  "Nope, that's from her quince," my host dad beamed with pride.  If you have the honor of going to a Mexican quince, take notes--you can use the ideas for your nuptials someday.


And speaking of family--the front door's been opening and closing a lot, so it looks like everyone's over for evening chat time.  It's not expected of me to be in attendance, but I prefer it because it's really nice to be part of something so dynamic!  This entry should be long enough to satisfy you until my next web appearance... it's spring break for me, but I've been busy writing papers, doing research for my 35pg term paper and my independent seminar project and taking care of graduation stuff while abroad.  Sad to think that I'm over halfway through with my time here in Merida!!  But on the bright side, I'll be leaving before the hot weather comes.  Who would have ever thought I'd step outside into 92* weather and think "Geez, glad it's not summer yet"?  But that's life in Mexico for you!

1 comment:

  1. Ashley, I'm loving your comments....but I have one recommendation. It might've been better to seperate each of these into smaller blog posts; it would've been easier to read and comprehend in smaller chunks.

    Anyway, fascinating comments. I can't wait until your next post!

    ReplyDelete