Foodscapes, Foodfields, and Identities in the YucatÁn. Steffan Igor Ayora-Diaz
not detail the immigrants' distribution within Yucatán or their place of origin, Meridans fear that their city is receiving the bulk of immigrants, mainly from the central Mexican highlands and Mexico City.
The growth of tourism in the region has translated into increasing demands (both quantitative and qualitative) on service providers. Until recent times, the peninsula of Yucatán had been relatively isolated from tourism flows. It was only in 1961 that the Mérida airport began to receive international flights filled with US tourists, who were attracted by the state's archaeological sites (Woodman 1966). During the late 1970s, the state government, seeking to profit from the success of Cancún, promoted the Yucatecan coast as an alternative to the overcrowded beaches of the state of Quintana Roo. By the end of the 1990s, the government of the state of Yucatán, forced to admit that the beaches on the Yucatecan north (the Gulf of Mexico waters) were not as attractive as those in the Maya Riviera tourism district, shifted the focus of its promotional campaigns. Instead of beaches, the emphasis was placed upon cultural resources. The multiple archaeological sites, several colonial towns, and existing hotel infrastructure were used to encourage cultural and academic tourism (Fernández Repetto 2010). Hotels in Mérida were promoted as sites to host international and national academic conferences, as well as political and economic meetings. At the beginning of this century, Yucatán was receiving about 1.5 million tourists annually, 31 percent of whom were foreign (SECTUR n.d.: 51).
Other processes have contributed to the growth of population in Mérida. In 1985, shortly before we left the state of Yucatán, a massive earthquake had shocked Mexico City's population. Terrified by the massive destruction, many central Mexicans began searching for alternative residence in other Mexican states. Certain that this was not the last of such events, and as a solution to the overcrowding of Mexico City, the Mexican government launched a decentralization campaign. Some industrial firms received tax incentives to relocate their plants to other Mexican regions, and bureaucrats were offered salary incentives to work in other Mexican states. Many Mexicans selected the city of Mérida in the north of the state of Yucatán as their new place of residence. A small city in the 1980s, it was the home of a population reputed for its hospitality and warmth. The city began to grow, partly as a result of this migratory movement triggered by geological phenomena and government policies, and partly as a result of rural-urban migration within the state of Yucatán, which was the outcome, in turn, of the application of new policies that discouraged agricultural work and ended the local production of henequen fibers. Rural Yucatecans began to migrate to Mérida, to Cancún, and abroad in search of work opportunities (Adler 2004; Re Cruz 1996). The growth in numbers of immigrants from other Mexican regions triggered local resentment, as many Yucatecans began to look on their presence as a threat to local culture and values. It was common to hear in conversations that it was imperative to restrict the immigration of Mexicans into the state of Yucatán.
In their everyday experience, Yucatecans have to face immigrants from different parts of the country whom they perceive to behave differently from themselves. Some Yucatecans complain that Mexicans are terribly aggressive and arrogant, that they routinely despise local ways of doing things, and that they seek to impose their own customs and practices in an attempt to displace local ones. In an apparently restrained but insidious language usage, I have found that it is common for central Mexicans to refer to the states as ‘the provinces', to see their inhabitants as ‘provincial' (meaning ‘parochial’), and to presume an inherent superiority in their own social, cultural, political, and economic practices, which they view as ‘metropolitan'. For example, a central Mexican woman confessed somewhat embarrassedly that, only a short time before we met, her husband had started a business that failed all too soon. She explained that he had been exasperated by the way in which local cantinas and small restaurants catered to their patrons. He did not like the botanas34 served there and decided that he would open his own bar where he “would teach Yucatecans the proper way to eat.” After a couple of months, during which he failed to ensnare Yucatecans willing to learn the ‘right' way of consuming food and drinks in a cantina, he was forced to close down his business. For some time, I thought that this was an extraordinary occurrence, until, one year later, my wife told me that a Mexican friend in her guitar group had launched an ‘economic kitchen' (a take-out eatery) that soon failed. He did not like Yucatecan food and opened his business with the conviction that he would be able “to teach Yucatecans about good Mexican food” (Vargas Cetina, pers. comm.). This sort of ‘imperial certainty', which is implicit in the social performance of central Mexicans and perceived as such by Yucatecans, plays a part in strengthening the cultural and social divide between local and non-local people.
In addition to attempts to educate Yucatecans about the unquestionable superiority of Mexican food, Mexicans are reputedly imposing changes in the composition of traditional Yucatecan dishes. Instead of recognizing or showing a willingness to explore and respect the different and particular aesthetic forms of Yucatecan cuisine, Mexicans often complain about the lack of familiar ingredients (which Yucatecans perceive as alien to their own cuisine) and the scarcity of central Mexican dishes, requesting that they be introduced in the preparation of meals and in the menus of restaurants, respectively. Thus, cheese, an uncommon ingredient in local tamales, soups, and stews, is sometimes a distasteful—or at least an unexpected—find for Yucatecans who visit restaurants purportedly specializing in regional Yucatecan cooking. When Yucatecans either complain or voice their surprise, waiters or managers apologetically explain that the large number of Mexicans they serve has forced them to introduce those changes, because Mexicans did not like the dishes in their original form.
As a result of their everyday interactions with this sort of Mexican, as well as widespread rumors about Mexicans' ill-mannered behavior, some of which is observed first-hand, many Yucatecans now believe that Mexicans constitute a threat to Yucatecan culture, society, and identity. Thus, once, among many conversations I held with different acquaintances and friends about the increasing crime rates in Mérida, a couple of friends accused Mexicans of being the main source of crime. One of them passionately suggested: “We should start fencing the borders of the state. We should also give visas to foreigners and select those who will be allowed into Yucatán.” This attitude toward the people of Mexico is not uncommon, as some of my Yucatecan friends, probably alarmed at the breach of cultural intimacy, have suggested.35 Today, Yucatecans may not call for independence from Mexico, but, as the following account illustrates, they always find an opportunity to voice their distance from Mexican society.
During a house party in 2007, at which our hosts were serving Yucatecan tamales (vaporcitos), sandwiches filled with sandwichón mix, and cold overcooked pasta with a thin tomato sauce and fresh cheese sprinkled on top,36 I engaged in conversation with a Yucatecan entrepreneur. When he learned that we had recently driven about 6,000 kilometers from Ithaca to Mérida, he asked about our trip. In the course of giving an account, I mentioned that I had been surprised, when we arrived at the crossroads named La Tinaja in the state of Veracruz, to find a road sign pointing in the direction of the city of Veracruz and another one pointing to “El Sureste” (the southeast), encompassing under that term the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Yucatán. The entrepreneur laughed and then, turning serious, commented that he was aware that there had been, in years past, a project to build a channel in the Mexican Isthmus of Tehuantepec. He remarked that the official statement was that a channel was needed to facilitate trade between the Pacific and Gulf coasts of Mexico and as an alternative to the Panama Canal. However, he said, it was clear that it was in fact a strategy to separate physically the southeast from the rest of Mexico. In the end, the project did not prosper—which was a pity, he said, since it would have been better for Yucatán. After all, the people of the peninsula share a common culture, and there is enough ecological diversity to allow agricultural production to sustain the inhabitants of the region. There is oil around the peninsula, and Yucatecans also have the Caribbean coast, where the Maya Riviera and Cancún resort are located; hence, tourism could provide substantial revenue to Yucatán. When I reminded him that the Maya Riviera is in Quintana Roo and the oil is in the Bay of Campeche (states that border Yucatán), he reminded me, in turn, that they were originally part of Yucatán. Thus, together, these states would be able to exploit abundant natural resources and attract foreign capital to support themselves. Once separated, he added, Yucatecans could create a special residence tax for all non-Yucatecans