Reflections on Bolivia: Indigenous Women: clothing, labels, identity

There are a few things that have been bothering me since I arrived and especially since I began working with Pro Mujer.

The word “chola” or “cholita” makes my little Seattle native self really uncomfortable. The word refers to an indigenous woman and I understood it to be derogatory but I hear it ALL the time, so frequently that it cannot possibly be as offensive as I thought but I also hear a range of attitudes behind the word. My abuela uses it all the time affectionately, and while she is hardly a compass of the politically correct, she uses it in front of and in direct address to the woman she is referring to. It seems to be affectionate and I haven’t seen anyone take obvious offence. The loan officers at work use it in an offhand way to refer to socias but I haven’t seen them use it in front of their groups.

I asked María Elena about it but there isn’t a clear alternative to the word and it is very much derogatory, or at the very least can be. It’s the worst thing you could call someone but you can also use it without meaning anything by it. That doesn’t mean it’s right to use it but it’s not necessarily a slur every time I hear it. I’m going to make a conscious effort not to use it, but we’ll see how that goes. It’s so common.

Very interestingly, and perhaps disturbingly, I heard somewhere at work, in one of the centros focales though I don’t remember where, “la pollera” used to refer to an indigenous woman. The pollera is a certain type of skirt that some women wear and which visually identifies them as indigenous. How awful and interesting that her clothing should define her. How offensive I found this off-hand statement! When I asked Kari about it, she wasn’t bothered and simply said that it wasn’t common, but it was used.

It’s gotten me thinking about how some women dress in a way that clearly identifies them as indigenous but as far as I can tell, men don’t. At least not in Cochabamba. I’m finally really getting what we talked about in class last year as women being perceived as somehow “more indigenous” than men or as sort of keepers of the identity.

I talked to Kari and asked her about how women come to wear the pollera or don’t. She told me that as children, mothers make the decision for their daughters but as they get older and hit puberty, they make the decision, at least in theory. She said that she knows people who have made the transition and that it is very difficult and complicated for the individual and her family, especially for her relationship with her mother. Also, she pointed out that no one would ever make that decision without speaking excellent Spanish. She also said that being indigenous is easier for men because they don’t have to make choices about external identifiers so they can hold on more easily to their indigenity because it doesn’t result in a) having to make a clothing decision and b) being instantly identified one way or the other.