Homeboy, Bolivian Style
Pacific News Service, Youth Commentary, Pete Micek, Posted: Dec 04, 2003
Editor's Note: Travel all the way to Bolivia, a land-locked, mostly indigenous and poor South American nation, and you'll hear and see the street styles of inner-city USA. But don't expect Bolivians to like all things American -- these homeboys know what's hot and what's not.
LA PAZ, Bolivia--"Homeboy" is not a word I expected to hear in these streets.
One month after violence that left scores dead and a president in exile, I went back to Bolivia. After studying politics and culture in the land-locked South American nation in college, I had to take a look at its new face.
That face was obscured by a low-hanging Yankees hat.
In October, Bolivian crowds erupted in rebellion against a gas-exporting deal with American companies, the latest political battle in the country's troubled history. It was bad enough that the fallout from U.S. anti-drug programs has wreaked havoc on the beloved custom of coca-leaf growing, a tradition for centuries before the plant was used by dealers to feed the international cocaine habit. In recent years Bolivians have fought an American company over privatizing water, and now other American companies want the gas.
What news reports don't show is that despite the political and economic friction, American popular culture is still popular here -- and plentiful. Young Bolivians have so much exposure that they are choosy about it, discerning. They know the difference between a good movie and the disappointing new "Matrix." And they know the sound of quality rock bands compared with the noisy, underground music I had brought with me.
Living in such a small country actually gives Bolivians a cultural advantage. Major radio stations, for instance, take requests for almost any quality song -- sooner or later your request will be granted, and any listener can hear a wide variety of music in a day. While riding in taxis, I heard "Paint It Black" by the Rolling Stones and, to my surprise, "Love Will Tear Us Apart," by lesser-known British act Joy Division.
When my Bolivian date and I watched "The Matrix Revolutions," the theater was packed. But no one clapped after the endless, charmless flick. Bolivians may love American movies, but they don't love movies just because they're American.
My "homeboy," Flavio Acho, 33, of La Paz, also knows his way through the cultural mix. His workplace -- a carpentry workshop run by a group of ex-prisoners -- and his living conditions are meager, but his style shines. He calls all his buddies "homes" -- an abbreviation of the American hip-hop word "homeboy" -- and flashes a quick smile above a trendily unbuttoned shirt. Acho walks fast and talks faster, but always makes his point.
Acho knows "homes" sounds good, and he throws the word around whenever he pleases.
Acho's apprentice, Milton Contreras, 18, looks out slyly from beneath a crisp New York Yankees baseball cap. When I asked if he was a Yankees fan, however, Contreras didn't seem to understand. Baseball? He might not know who the Yankees are. But Contreras knows the hat is a nice touch. The brim is straight and unbent, and the hat rides high on his head, like the "gangsta" style in the United States.
Contreras repeatedly fussed with that hat, getting the tilt just right, throughout a long meeting of fellow carpenters in the workshop run by a church post-prison program. Many had met before in prison. Contreras had been busted for gang activity.
The cockeyed hat he proudly wears is a symbol of street life, whether in New York City or La Paz. Like Acho, Contreras is trying to carve out a legitimate economic path for himself. But both still maintain the fashions and language they learned on the streets and in prison, fashion and vocabulary that transcend borders. The strength of their worldwide street culture is good to see, because it means Bolivians are finding a way to work in my world -- despite my country's greedy companies and unsavory drug war -- that lets me go to work in theirs.
There's something else that struck me close to home. Contreras lives with a friend whose parents are Asian immigrants. When I asked Milton's friend where he came from, he answered clearly: "I'm Bolivian," he said, just like any son of immigrants to the United States might proudly call himself "American."
I showed my Bolivian friends a book of postcards featuring black-and-white pictures of gorgeous Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and her artwork. My new friends couldn't take their eyes off Kahlo, whose high cheekbones and devastating eyes were portrayed by Salma Hayek in the movie "Frida" last year. I had bought the postcards in a San Francisco art museum before my trip. Are the images they show part of U.S. culture or Mexican? A little of both, I guess. My new homeboys asked me to sign two of the postcards, which they kept. Now the pictures are Bolivian, too.
Bolivia is good at adopting other cultures. Many of its majority indigenous people wear bowler hats, a custom they picked up in colonial times, a few hundred years ago. I'm figuring Yankees hats, whether among the indigenous or the truly globalized urban young people, could be the next big thing, no matter what happens in politics.
PNS contributor Pete Micek, 22, is an intern at New California Media. He recently graduated from Northwestern University and gives props to his homies in Illinois.
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