Holiday Traditions Criss-Cross the Border

From ancient times, international trade has been the mechanism for spreading the practical products of culture—foods (spices, sugar, tea, coffee, chiles, potatoes, rice, wheat, tomatoes...), plant products (cotton, silk, wool...). The list is seemingly endless.

But the international traders often brought home more than products...sometimes they also brought home ideas and cultural practices. Modern technology has simply amplified these traditional effects.

Navidad Blanca (White Christmas)

So it is that Mexico City this year proclaimed a Navidad Blanca. Some Christmas Trees were available when we lived in Pátzcuaro, but they sell briskly in Mexico City. Mexicans tend to prefer the taller Christmas Trees imported from the U.S. and Canada. This year over a million were imported and sold.

Locally-grown, Mexican trees are smaller, greener, softer, but they often go unsold. The issue has become controversial, politically charged.

In Mexico City's Zócalo, the giant plaza bounded by the Cathedral and National Palace (seat of the Mexican government), a giant artificial Christmas Tree has been set up—perhaps to avoid getting embroiled in the controversy, which was even debated in the Mexican Senate.

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In the background is the Cathedral (left) and the National Palace (right). 

To complete the scene, a highly popular ice-skating rink has also been installed. You might excuse this newcomer for thinking...New York City's Rockefeller Center!

A giant ice-skating rink rests in front of the Christmas Tree; the Cathedral is in the background.

But this is, after all, Mexico!  So at night there is always an abundance of fireworks!

Fireworks display in the Zócalo (Mexico City)

Cultural Fusion at la frontera

This cultural fusion is probably most evident at la frontera (the border), an arbitrary line quite literally drawn in the sand. At the conclusion of the Mexican-American War, the U.S. and Mexican governments established a joint survey commission that sent surveyors from both countries to determine the location of the border—the legal, international boundary that would delineate land the U.S. was 'annexing' from Mexico.

No less a respected authority than George Friedman (founder of the Stratfor Report, which objectively applies a geopolitical perspective to global intelligence issues) lays out the geographic and cultural reality:  Northern Mexico and the Southwest United States are a single geographic unit whose culture reflects and sustains its Spanish-Mexican heritage.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the border towns—El Paso, Texas/Ciudad Juarez, Mexico; Brownsville, Texas/Matamoros, Mexico; Laredo, Texas-Nuevo Laredo, Mexico; McAllen, Texas/Reynosa, Mexico; San Diego, California/Tijuana, Mexico. Nogales literally straddles the border—part in Arizona, part in Mexico.

Until recently, the border was a mere formality that did not affect the life of these vibrant border communities. Residents shopped on both sides of the border, nor was it uncommon for large, extended families to have members living on both sides.

Reed came upon a somewhat rambling but nonetheless interesting article on the mixing of Mexican and U.S. holiday traditions—and commerce! The piece was published in Frontera NorteSur—a journalism project of the University of New Mexico in Las Cruces, NM, located about 30 miles from El Paso, TX/Ciudad Juarez.

The piece focuses around the Mercado Mayapan, which was founded by former garment workers who banded together to promote grassroots economic development. The Mercado Mayapan is a place where residents and visitors can shop for fair trade-oriented holiday gifts while reaffirming traditional culture. “It’s not about the consumerist aspect,” a spokeswoman said, “It’s more about the get-together”—fiestas!

To celebrate Navidad, the Mercado sponsored mariachi bands, a traditional posada, and a giant piñata for children of all ages!   

The Mercado is also reviving another tradition that counters today's rampant commercialism. On the morning of the Posada, Orozco and several friends did a trial run of a tianguis (exchange by barter), which they'd like to hold on a regular basis. For their first tianguis, market friends traded body care products and natural foods including oatmeal, fresh mint and chiles curtidos (chiles in vinegar).

Holiday Traditions Straddle the Border

From here, the piece broadens out to include various holiday customs celebrated on both sides of the border.  In Puerto Vallarta, for example, restaurants feature traditional Thanksgiving dinners to their large U.S. and Canadian expat community, tourists and, tellingly, Mexican nationals as well.  

Other holidays have become transcultural, including Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and Halloween, where Mexican skulls (calaveras), notably la Catrina, are showing up in the U.S., and young people south of the border are dressing up in ghoulish Halloween costumes. For our part, Reed and I were startled to see carved pumpkins (jack o'lanterns) adorning a grave in a Pátzcuaro panteón (graveyard)! 

One unfortunate byproduct is the extension of Black Friday into Mexico. In November Mexico City sponsored a 'Good Weekend'—the Mexican version of the famed (or, infamous, depending on your point of view) U.S. discount day.  

The piece wraps up with a lovely anecdote. An older woman, Lydia Zavala, has brought her great-niece to the Mercado Mayapan to shop for jewelry and a CD. Asked why she chose the Mercado, Zavala replied, “It’s handmade, and we’re supporting these artisans as opposed to supporting corporate America,” Zavala said. “This is the only place in El Paso that celebrates the Mexican traditions well…we need to keep it alive. We need to keep all these traditions alive.”

The reality is more complicated, but what is abundantly clear is the transcultural ambiance of these border towns. Since 1550 B.C. when the first Phoenician traders set forth in their galleys hugging the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, through the Age of Exploration...and Trade, up to today's gigantic container ships, the peoples and the cultures of the world have been exchanging products and ideas.

We are all enriched by this millenniums-old tradition of trade and cultural exchange.  Enjoy!

Still Curious?

 

If you'd like to read the original article, here's the link: http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/2011/12/20/contesting-and-reclaiming-the-holidays/