eyes wide shut

It's been an odd couple of days. We've spent a lot of time talking about racism, about Mexico, about Mexicans. Read this.

I love Mexico, I love Mexicans, I love the life I live. But, like some demented princess from a Disney film, it appears that I might be wandering through this life with a false perception. The ground is covered with rose petals, the birds are singing in the trees and everything is wonderful because I'm a fairy princess (this is an analogy - I'm not really a fairy princess and if I were, I would not choosing this moment to come out). Does this mean that everything I've said, written, about Mexico is a lie? Does this mean that when you turn up here you will discover a totally different world to the one I have described? Well, no, not really, because you're foreign, too. You're different, and will be treated differently to a Mexican. This idyllic world I have described is freely available to you, no extra charge, just make sure that you look foreign, speak foreign, act foreign. Life is grand.

Of course, the flipside is that I will never know the real Mexico because everyone treats me differently. But (except for two incidents, one in a bar and the other on the street) I have always been treated well.

We have a favourite restaurant, La Mandolino, I've mentioned it a couple of times on here, I rave about it constantly. Friends, inspired by my enthusiasm, have gone to the place and when questioned, after their visit, have been a little non-committal. Up until now we haven't really questioned their reasons but, in the light of what we have discovered in the last couple of days, we have started to pursue this. It appears that the reason they don't like the place is that the service is crap. They are ignored, orders aren't taken, food doesn't turn up, glasses go empty, finished plates remain on the table. This isn't the restaurant we eat in. We are met at the door, welcomed in, drinks are produced as we sit down (they remember our preferences), an ashtray appears, a basket of bread (that is changed often because the bread has cooled). They have started replacing our cutlery once we have eaten a course. When we finish eating we are left alone to drink and talk, we are never hurried out the door. A week ago we visited a bar and last Thursday we entered the bar again - now, this is The Tijuana Bar, the bar connected to the town's brewery. It copes with over a thousand people a week? As you sit in the bar you can see groups of visitors going round the brewery and then they enter the bar to sample the wares. It is busy, busy, busy. On Thursday, by the time we had sat down a diet coke was placed in front of Maria, an ice cold glass of beer in front of me, and we were informed that the guacamole was on its way. A week after our previous visit! They remembered us. True, I might have over-tipped the previous time but, even so, they remembered us. Or at least, as I am learning, they remembered me.

But what to do? Does this mean that I am going to live the rest of my life being treated as though I was special (and I don't mean special in that way that teachers talk about pupils as special)? Well, there is little I can do about it. And how do I feel about it all? Sad. It's not right. I am not better than anyone, I'm not special. I think that my friends are better than I, I think that Mexicans are much nicer people (as a race) than the English - I'm not damning a whole country there. But then, I have to pause, and wonder if my opinion is tainted because of the way I'm treated? There is no norm for me. I don't know what is the norm and that makes me a bit sad. I've also been frighteningly naive and probably unconsciously racist. As my awareness of the latent racism that exists in this country has been raised, I have realised that I have been incredibly unaware of my own racism - racism by omission. I have been guilty of "they all look the same". After a very long conversation on Thursday night, I spent a lot of Friday looking carefully at the children I teach. Children who I had (in my mind) labelled as "white" were, in fact, not. Children who I had classified as "not particularly Mexican looking" were suddenly Mexican. And, the most upsetting thing, suddenly I could see that the children, and I hope sub-consciously, divided themselves into groups on the playground. The whiter children stuck together, the more Indian looking children were apart. In the classroom there is a noticeable under-current, a different sense of confidence and superiority between the different children. And I hadn't noticed. It makes me feel sad. Sad that this exists, sad that it has taken me so long to really notice.

Will it change me? Yes, obviously. I hope it will change me for the better but, I fear that it will change me because some of the shine has been knocked off - the rose-tinted glasses are a lot clearer now. Can I change it? No, sadly. I will be a lot more careful in what I say, how I act in class, how I interact with the children. But there is little I can do to change something that every Mexican is born with and every Mexican lives their lives with.

As a wear-my-heart-on-my-sleeve liberal I've spent a lot of time bemoaning the fact that I am treated differently, that I have no chance to know what it is like to be a real Mexican. In three years time, when I can apply for a Mexican passport, I will still be foreign. I will still be treated as "special". There is no escape, nothing I can do to change the bubble I live in.

Well, there is one way. Efraín has recommended a restaurant for me to visit. He tells me that the waiters will be rude, the service will be awful, the food will be cold, my order will be taken incorrectly and I will be treated badly. It is a restaurant in which I will feel like a Mexican! It's a French restaurant.

[Footnote: In a discussion, with La Directore about her project, when asked to name some of the "qualities I possess" she said the following:
One of your qualities is that you are English, whereas, one of my limitations is that I am Mexican.
Which, in retrospect, probably sums up this whole discussion in one phrase.]

Comments

[Helly]

There's only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures... and the Dutch.

[Blue Witch]

Gosh, how differenct to most other countries, where if you are from another country you are automatically second class in the eyes of many.

Actually... thinking, I suspect that's only true of attitudes in 'developed' countries. eg We were treated as royalty in Cambodia last year.

[maria]

"Developed" countries, indeed.

I believe that the colonizers did a job on the colonies. And if it were only a matter of a battle fought with guns, it would have been over as soon as they were thrown out, as soon as slavery was abolished, as soon as the signature was written on the independence declaration; but these are battles fought with words, and whoever doesn't believe in the power of words should only look at how some words have destroyed whole cultures, at how people are still being kept down, at how many still think less of themselves, after years of independence, after years of freedom.

I don't know what it would take for this to change. But opening your eyes to it is a start.

[Alan]

The "lack of service" that you described I have experienced most often in English restaurants. Everytime I have eaten in a restaurant in another country, I have always been treated very well. I sometimes think this is because in other countries "eating out" is more of a regular social thing than it is in the UK, but then what do I know anyway.

That said when we do finally visit you and Maria, we can all go out for a meal. Just so long as you don't wear your fairy princess tutu! ;)

[Vanessa]

But it's not just a lack of service, it's a belief system that corrodes from the inside.
I thought I would never understand the 'colour' system at work here in Perú. I'd sit in the parque and ask 'what colour is he?' , 'what colour is she?'. My british perceptions of white, black, sarf east asian and indian were insufficient for the situation. No matter how often I was pointed 'white' and 'black', I wouldn't recognise them for myself.
But I calmed down about it when I asked americans (the US variety) about colour and realised they have an entirely different system. I mean 'morena' isn't even a word in the UK, much less a social class.
Now I just figure every country has its own silliness. Sadly.