San Cristóbal de las Casas: a city. or three?

My new home, San Cristóbal de las Casas (SCLC), is well known for several things:

• Natural beauty. Nestled at over 2,000 meters in the highland plains of southern Mexico, nearby outdoorsy attractions such as hiking, waterfalls, lakes, caves and a canyon with crocodiles abound. 

• Colonial charm. The city, founded in 1528, was one of the first locations in continental America to be inhabited by Spaniards. Many of the streets are still paved with cobblestones and grand colonial cathedrals are scattered throughout the city.

• Ethnic diversity. Though not the political capital of Chiapas, SCLC is the cultural capital thanks in part to indigenous populations which comprise an important part of the social fabric of this city.

According to the 2010 census, SCLC is home to 185,917, but the population is in no way homogenous. In fact, in a late-night chat with long-term MCC volunteers Rick and Jacquie, we analyzed SCLC´s three broad, and often quite segregated, subpopulations: colet@s, indigenous persons and foreigners. I have the great fortune of interacting with all three groups.

• Colet@s (mestiz@s originating from SCLC): My host family falls into this category, as do the majority of their friends. Often lighter-skinned, this population covers the entire socioeconomic spectrum, adheres to a range of religions and holds a variety of political views. Mothers often stay at home, as is the case in my house. Some hold strong prejudices against the indigenous population. This includes my host grandmother who just today told me (much to my horror) that I either picked up the flea that was my bedmate last night from a street dog or from an indigenous person. In a discussion about a week ago, my host dad told me that though intermarriage between mestiz@s and indigenous people is beginning to happen more, among upper class colets@s, it is still unacceptable. Many colet@s have a strong sense of tradition and culture and I am appreciating learning about both the beauty and ugliness of life in Mexico through our interactions.

• The indigenous population: As with the colet@s, I can only paint the indigenous population with large strokes, doing no real justice to the diversity of lived experience present in this group. Many of the indigenous people I see every day in SCLC live in nearby (or not so nearby) communities. Many retain traditional dress, their native languages (primarily Tzotzil and Tzeltal) and practice Indigenous Mayan spirituality. Some are street vendors and sell beautiful artesian work or maintain fruit and vegetable stands in the market located just a few blocks from my home. Some have integrated completely into what you could stereotype as “mainstream Mexican culture.” And of course, there are those somewhere in the middle, such as a number of my coworkers who have indigenous roots. I love hearing their stories of growing-up as well as the pride in their voices when they talk about their home communities.

• Upon my arrival in SCLC, I was expecting to encounter the former two groups, but the number of tourists and expats here suprised me. For the reasons I discussed at the beginning of this post, SCLC is a HUGE tourist destination. Additionally, if you walk down one of the two beautiful downtown andadores (pedestrian streets), you can imagine you are in any city of your choosing. There are restaurants from all around the world, a thriving nightlife, yoga classes, a plethora of hippies, alternative movie theaters and shops galore. Though I´m slowly making Mexican friends, I´ve found it easier to get to know other foreigners like me (mostly from Europe) because we´re newer and looking to build a community from square one, where as many people who have lived here their whole lives have their family, work and social circles nearby and well-developed. Relating to Europeans (in Spanish) has been a culture-shock that I certainly wasn´t expecting, but these friends are teaching me a lot about the world and are pushing me to think in new ways. Many foreigners here are quite politically and socially progressive, attracted by the Zapatista uprising in the mid-1990s. It´s not always easy running in these circles and being from the U.S. Almost everyone here (whether Mexican or not) is quite critical of the U.S. (and this coming from someone who does not shy away from critizing our government or capitalist economic system) and this perhaps helps me understand why I have only met three fellow estadounidenses during my time here. Mostly, though, I understand where these people are coming from. One thing that does annoy me, though, is a phrase I hear far too often from my foreign counterparts when we run into each other downtown: “this is such a small place.” To me, SCLC is not small.  However, the tourist population is fairly self-contained in historic downtown and can be somewhat disconnected from the rest of city life.

These three populations (which I have grossly overgeneralized) are all an integral part of SCLC and without any one (or any other part of the population I have failed to describe), SCLC would not be the city I´m beginning to love in all its beauty, with all its challenges and with its multitude of varied life-realities and experiences.