Article written by Anna
Looking back on her her time in Mexico, Anna touches on her encounters with a Mux of Oaxaca (a crossdressing man), children of paramilitaries, and the mixing of Western and local cultures.
All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go... well, not quite. And I'm certainly less prepared to churn out a concise, insightful piece that encapsulates everything I want to say, that touches on universal themes yet is still original. One of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott, said something to the effect of, "Life does not seem to present itself to me to write about it with wisdom and a point to make, so I can wrap it up neatly and put it on the shelf." True dat. If I wanted to sound all official-like, I'd say something like, "Throughout my time in Mexico, my experiences with other people, places, and ideas constantly forced me to question my own role as an individual (yup, still entrenched in notions of Western individualism), a woman, a United-States-ian and a 'global citizen.'" It involved plenty of blood, sweat, and tears, fo' sho', as well as dirt, bug bites, and a number of gastrointestinal experiences I won't detail, because you all know that scene well. Throw in a tablespoon of linguistic struggles, a dash of gringa catcalls, a cup of bumpy bus rides through the mountains, and about ten pounds of white guilt and constantly being humbled; simmer first in the scorching heat of Oaxaca and then cool in the monsoons of Chiapas. Voila!: the result is a cliché metaphor that doesn't even begin to relate the breadth and depth of any one peron's experience "abroad."
I have, at times, found myself in situations utterly different than any I would have encountered back home. For example, with my program, I had the chance to speak with a "muxe" in Juchitán, on the coast of Oaxaca. Muxes are a societally accepted third gender of biological men who live as women, complete with flowing tresses, lots o' makeup, stiletto heels, and well-known public catfights over men in the streets of Juchitán. Straight men can develop relationships with muxes without being considered homosexual, and muxes themselves are considered blessings to their families, particularly gifted at hairstyling and dress-making. I envisioned gender studies profs discussing the fluidity of gender with regards to biology, but the rigid constructions of gender and feminity inherent within the same society. I envisioned a transvestite in small town USA yearning for the embracing arms of such a community. I envisioned the muxe herself glancing at my cropped coif and sensible shoes, wondering who was the real girl around town.
Not all such experiences felt good in the moment. When I stayed in the Las Abejas community of Nuevo Yibeljoj, my fellow program-mates and I took a short sojourn along the arroyo than ran outside the settlement. We met some local children, and tried first Spanish, then pathetic attempts at tzotzil, then finally mere laughter, but to no avail. Machetes frozen at their sides, eyes blazing, they silently stared back. Later that night, a member of Las Abejas told us, "I saw you speaking to those children. Those are paramilitary children. They've already learned hatred from their parents." At the risk of seeming racist and simplistic, I gotta say, I detected no discernible difference in the faces of those children and the ones playing in the school in Nuevo Yibeljoj. In all likelihood, these kids - belonging to the same ethnic group, speaking the same language, bathing in the same river - will grow up as neighbors and enemies. In a bittersweet way, I recalled the wisdom of my perennial favorite Maya Angelou: "I note the various differences between each sort and type/ But we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike/ We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike."
In between any extremes, however, were the millions of moments negotiating pieces of the "other," the convergence of difference, the ultimate creation of common ground. Many were filled with warm-fuzzy-type delight. In Polhó, the Zapatista community where I stayed as part of my independent study project, I heard the instrumental strains of "A Whole New World" lilting through the windows of the band room at a moment when I felt particularly homesick. (Transnationalization of culture, anyone?) I grinned when my Oaxacan host father scooped up the baked spaghetti I prepared for the family (heaven forbid they should live without knowing the delights of white trash comfort food) with a corn tostada, explaining, "I just need something to push it." Others were more painful; the substitution of Coke products in syncretic church rituals in Chamula, for example, or Sam's Clubs and Office Depots springing up in the suburbs of Oaxaca City. "The man" may be responsible for part of this erosion of borders, but some of it results from more positive contact, opening up, taking in. I'll be the first to admit that globalization largely blows, but when it affords me the opportunity to participate in the Las Abejas monthly commemoration ceremony, to shuffle my feet and carry carnations and slurp frijolitos along with the community members, I'll critique as I travel.
As for culture shock upon my return, who knows? San Cristobál, with its seitan stir-fries, Monty Python screenings, and endless Chacos slapping the coblestone streets, hardly feels "foreign" most of the time. In all likelihood, the SUV's screaming through the streets, the dollar-fifty-a-pound I'll pay to feed my lime addiction, and the frenetic pace of U.S. life will hit hard initially, and then I'll adapt, as we malleable humans are wont to do. But, as usual, I expect some sort of middle ground. I'll note my little sisters watching Sponge Bob and recall my host brothers in Oaxaca transfixed by the same film. I'll sip Leinie's at my annual block party in Madison and think of the posh-laden fiestas of the communities I visited. I'll skim the paper for news of Iraq and remember the army trucks spilling over with soldiers that rambled along the carretera of Los Altos. We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.
