The discussions around the overlap in tourism and colonialism have stayed with me as I’ve reflected on the excursions and lectures from Merida as well as the days back from the trip. I recently passed by my local Dairy Queen, and it made me think about how the one of the first signs of gentrification in Merida was the Dairy Queen being built and how many other chains had been added to the area since. In this way, the land and economy are ultimately controlled by American corporations; however, in one of the guest lectures and the reading about “ecocide,” we also talked about how the city of Merida gentrifies the surrounding local towns in order to make them part of the city, making me wonder just how much influence American and foreign institutions will have in the area in the future. Indirectly and directly, it was shocking to see how far-reaching the implications of American consumerism truly are, and it made me realize how much of a bubble American citizens are in.
One excursion that really depicted the thin line between tourism and colonialism was the Chocolate Museum we visited. While it was informational and the intent was to share an important aspect of Mayan culture, overall, it just felt exploitative. In every plaque, the Mayan people were depicted as monkeys, and the actual animals like the jaguar and crocodile, which were all sacred in Mayan culture, were housed in less than ideal environments. In addition to that, there was a performance of a sacred rain ritual, and while the ritual itself was beautiful, the look of complete disconnect the individuals performing it had was upsetting because it seemed that the value and sacredness had been completely lost after performing the ritual every 15 minutes. It raised questions of whether this museum was truly preserving and sharing Mayan culture or just profiting off tourists because of how the cultural value of the rain ritual had diminished so greatly for the people. I found out it was a Belgium owned museum as well, so the majority of profits are not going back to the community either, though it did create jobs, which one of our final readings, “A Return to Servitude,” talks about. One reason tourism is so successful in fighting poverty is because of its ability to create jobs for both men and women and its high foreign exchange earnings, but ultimately being dependent on tourists and the tourist economy causes more problems than resolving them.
American and European institutions profiting off of Mayan culture and traditions is also very ironic after what we learned from Christi Uicab. While explaining her inspiration for her play, she talked about how colonizers weaponized Mayan history to spread shame and racist ideas, and even today people with Mayan surnames suffer socioeconomically. Christi wasn’t taught the Mayan language or what traditional clothing looked like by her grandparents due to those ideas, but places like the Chocolate Museum and Chichen Itza actively used Mayan history and culture for profit despite continuing to perpetuate the racist ideas impacting Mayan people.
