Ethnicity
As portrayed by Davide  Zori, Lindsay Juhl, Laura Hill
Ethnicity is the culture which a certain people display through their daily routine, dress, language, attitudes, and manner in which they carry themselves.  This ethnic background encompasses all facets of life.  Family structure, housing, religion, and countless other measures of ethnicity all combine to create culture and define characteristics of a society.  As a part of the six week University of Florida program to Merida, Mexico we have had the opportunity to study and emerge ourselves in the culture of the Yucatan.  Whether with our Mexican host families, on field studies around the Yucatan, or in the markets of Merida, we find ourselves surrounded by evidence of ethnicity every day.  We sense a strong ethnic structure which combines indigenous Mayan beliefs with traditional Spanish practices.  The effect of ethnicity upon urban versus rural attitudes concerning dress, language, and outside global forces is discussed throughout this project.  Although a plethora of other aspects within the realm of Yucatan ethnicity are available for discussion, we found those mentioned above to be most prevalent during our experience in Mexico.

Location plays a large role in the attitudes of people towards ethnicity.  There is a pervasive Mayan influence found in all areas of the Yucatan.  The continuance and preservation of traditional ways of life vary throughout the peninsula.  As we found out, people in rural areas like Ticul and Coba, acknowledge Mayan ethnicity in greater numbers than in urban areas like Merida.  The Mayan language  is more prevalent, you see more of what is considered the traditional clothing, and more people are practicing general traditional behavioral traits. Just because Maya is more prevalent in rural areas then in urban areas, does not mean that it does not exist in cities like Merida.  You can walk down a street any given day in Merida and see stores with Mayan names and men and women dressed in traditional clothing.

DRESS

 

 
 
Today's traditional Mayan clothes consist of huipils for women and white pants and shirts for men.  This style of dress is the style forced on the Mayas half a millennium ago by the fervent Catholic clergy who believed the Indians' former dress to be inappropriate. 

After speaking with a woman who was working in a hotel gift shop in Coba, we learned that huipil dresses are worn in her family.  She wears this traditional type of clothing for work and everyday activities.  Her children have uniforms that are worn to school but otherwise her daughters wear the dresses too.  When our class attended a program in Ticul hosted by young students they  informed us that huipiles are only for senoras, women that are married.  Their mothers and grandmothers wore the dresses but they themselves never did. As we spoke about the dresses the students were laughing and smiling as though they thought it was funny that I would even ask them if they wore the huipil dresses.  It was as though because of their age they had never even thought of putting the dress on.  I was intrigued by the difference in opinions between the woman in Coba and the children in Ticul.   The woman talked about her children wearing the dresses as it was no big deal but the opinion of a child was completely different. 

The different situations in which people wear traditional dress vary greatly.  While some individuals, such as the woman in Coba, wear Mayan clothes when at work and home, others prefer more modern clothes when in public.  Vendors may wear hipiles and guayaberas simply to cater to tourists.  We also observed in Merida that out household maids and gardeners were more likely to wear Mayan dress than our Yucatecan parents.  In this way traditional dress may signify both social class and occupation. 

 

LANGUAGE

We also discussed the Mayan language and its use with both the woman in Coba and the children in Ticul.  In Coba, Mayan is spoken frequently.  In the home of the gift shop employee, Mayan is spoken.  Lots of people are bilingual in Maya and Spanish, but when meeting friends on the street or at social occasion, Mayan is spoken.  A few of the students in the group that I spoke with in Ticul said that some of their mothers and almost all of their grandmothers spoke Mayan and in some homes, it was the language that was used.

We experiences a very different pattern of spoken Mayan within Merida.  Although we did not hear it being spoken half as much as in rural areas like Ticul, there is a strong undercurrent of its existence felt within the city.  Many of our families claimed to not know Mayan yet could be heard speaking it  on different occasions.  People seem reluctant to admit to speaking Mayan due to its association with a lower social class.  Yet there is great pride taken in the indigenous language.  People respond very positively when we practice the few words we know and enjoy that we are interested in the Mayan language.
 
 

GLOBAL INFLUENCES

A predominant portion of this larger influence is created by tourism. Areas such as the super developed beaches of Cancun and the small village of Coba experience at least some change in ethnicity and culture as a result of tourism. Cancun desperately depends on tourism and has traded much of its ethnicity for the opportunity to reap the benefits of tourism.  Stripped of Mayan language, dress, and customs, Cancun is more like an American city than a Mexican one. Coba, on the other hand, remains extremely small due to its isolated location and the lesser degree of tourism.  People wear traditional dress, speak Mayan, and participate in indigenous customs. It must be mentioned that as increasing amounts of people begin to visit the ruins in Coba and infiltrate the community, ethnic practices begin to diminish.  Less young people speak Mayan and nutritional ethnic foods have been replaced by unhealthy pre made foods.

This trend towards the consumption of nontraditional food represents another outside influence on Yucatecan ethnicity.  Not only is the shift to non ethnic food detrimental to the health of Yucatecans but it serves to erode another link to their indigenous heritage.  Daily meals as well as traditional dishes are being sacrificed to more convenient recipes and methods of preparation. One such example is Pib, the traditional food eaten on the Day of the Dead.  We enjoyed witnessing the process taken to prepare and cook Pib in an earth oven.  This traditional method of creating Pib continues in towns such as Ticul, but has ceased in many larger cities like Merida.  This alteration serves to diminish a small part of Mayan ethnicity.

Another larger world force that influences the Yucatan ethnicity is the media.  Movies and music portray alternate ways of life and ideals created in different cultures. It amazes our entire group to hear the constant bombardment of English in the Yucatan. Discotecs flood the dance floor with American artists (even Ricky Martin has jumped on the bandwagon!)  The television and movie theaters contain programs and films in English with Spanish subtitles. This constant stream of ideas and behaviors of different cultures works to slowly mutate the ethnicity existing in the Yucatan.

And why is it at all important to bring up this topic of ethnicity.  Because maybe in stepping back and looking at the ethnic struggle that goes on everyday, we might be able to save an age old ethnicity and maybe even learn how to integrate ethnicity without creating social inequalities and discrimination.
 

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