Compromising Culture
Nyki Duda
Winter 2007, Divisadero
The
holidays can inspire guilt. Credit cards maxed out and car trunks full of gifts
for the family, US consumers rush home to clean out their closets, determined
to “give back” in the spirit of the season. Unwanted clothes are dumped into
charity collection bins. From there, it’s on to the thrift store.
Charity
shops can be cluttered, too, and when their racks can’t accommodate the
overstock, the clothes are sent to the needy. Right?
Well,
sort of. Some US organizations have begun to send their excess to Latin
America, where “donated” clothing from the US is sold at dirt-cheap prices. A
fine idea in theory – provide affordable clothing to impoverished Latin
Americans. Beneath the surface, the practice poses a serious threat to Latin
American culture as Western brands and style overtake traditional ways of
dress.
Due
mostly to questionable labor practices, US customers are offered lower prices
on clothing made overseas in developing nations. As prices deflate, clothing
becomes disposable and we continue to replace it. Out-of-style duds are donated
to second-hand stores where they are (usually illegally) exported to Latin
America. Like other shadow economies, the illegal trade in used clothing is
near-impossible to control.
Now, on
US soil and in metropolises like Mexico City or Lima, it is common to see city dwellers
dressed in the latest Western styles. Lately, Nike and GAP labels have been
cropping up in the cerros of Honduras
and the pampas of the Southern Cone
alike. Traditional rural or gaucho wares are less common, outshined by US used
imports. Indigenous communities that have sustained their post-contact cultures
on a semblance of tradition find their native dress impractical compared to
blue jeans.
Patricia
Salinas, a resident of Munster, Indiana, has family in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
As a youth spending her summers there, she recalls the women would wear “shawls,
long skirts, leather sandals; things you associate with Mexico and its culture.”
A mostly mestizo area, the regional
style was far from distinctive.
Still, after
returning to her family’s home last summer after 15 years, she was in for a
shock when she saw her 87-year old aunt, Jovita Salinas Fuentes, in a familiar
getup.
“She was
wearing jeans and a button-up shirt from Wal-Mart,” she recalled.
In April
2007, Bolivian President Evo Morales banned imports of used clothing from
countries like the US. Bolivia, like neighboring Peru, has a large, vibrant and
impoverished indigenous population with unique traditional styles.
The
land-locked nation is the 32nd country in the world to implement
this strict conditional ban along with Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. But is the
ban ethical when traditional clothing like the pollera of the Aymara women, is almost prohibitively expensive?
Like
other leaders, Morales feels affordable used clothing isn’t worth the cost of a
loss of national identity. In fact, he often sports an artisanal Bolivian-made
sweater at official functions. Both moves could and are being construed as
statements against US imperialism, but for his countrymen, the option to buy
Bolivian is hardly a realistic one.
In his
July 2007 article “Morales to Ban Used Clothing in Bolivia,” journalist Dan
Keane spoke to Jose Luis Hernandez, a Bolivian citizen concerned by the ban.
“I don’t
know what it’s like to wear new clothing,” he said. “My pay isn’t enough after
food, the rent.”
A wider
Latin American ban of used clothing will leave families like the Hernandezes
with few options. But should the shipments of Western apparel continue to roll
in, maintaining national and indigenous identities will undoubtedly become more
of a struggle.
