For ten thousand years the ideal of feminine beauty was largesse, so to speak. It was a sign of health, fertility, wealth and success. If you were able to maintain obesity, you weren’t dying of consumption or plague, you weathered childbirth, and you were affording a lifestyle, which included an abundance of clean, rich food. Observe the Venus of Willendorf, Grecian artwork, or the paintings of any of the Renaissance Masters, and you’ll get a good idea of the tastes of the time. It was for the most part an unattainable ideal, as most people could not afford clean, rich food, and suffered a host of different diseases, which affected the skin, bones, digestive tracts and the weight of the population.
As time passed, food became more abundant and the quality became regulated, the ideal slowly shifted to the complete opposite of the spectrum. The automation of our daily lives has made us sedentary. Quality, organic produce is expensive to the average consumer. When both parents are working, making a homemade meal free of processed foods is an enormous chore. Fast food is cheap and easy. To juxtapose this, the average model or actress weighs 40-50 lbs less than the average American, and their boney figures are shoved in the face of the average working mom creating an entire industry based on crash diets, metabolic supplements and meal planning.
Most traditional cultures still value the voluptuous figure. Hell, most men period still value the traditional figure. As a tomboy whose friends are mostly men, I have been privy to their crude conversations, and really, the base, carnal nature of most males still cries out for those basic instinctive signifiers.
Paseños get crapped on a lot because of our physiques. Thanks to our place on the annual list of the country’s fattest and sweatiest cities (c’mon, it’s the desert, for Christsake) we’ve become the butt of many a joke. The fallout from obesity is a health issue nationwide, and especially so on the border where mestizo heritage includes a predisposition towards diabetes and hypertension. This is the legacy of the Middle Eastern conquerors of Spain. I can personally attest to the latter. My mother’s female relatives range from 4’11” to 5’7”. Their figures range from apple bodied (in their old age) to voluptuous (after children), to svelte (prior to childbirth). Many of them struggle with their weight and many of my relatives have suffered from hypertension, type II diabetes, lupus, cancer of all make and model, stroke and heart failure. If this is the figure and the health condition of people who eat romaine lettuce, olive oil, almonds, lentils, whole wheat bread, yogurt, garbanzo beans and fava beans every day, one can imagine how badly these genetics can affect a community cooking with Morel and eating brisket and white flour tortillas as staples.
There is a middle ground. There is a type of figure, which the world of fashion seems to find unacceptable, which is healthy, and curvatious, but not obese, and we have that in spades.
I’ve mentioned Reyes Mata several times in my columns. Reyes is a perfect example of an individual desperately trying to make something happen Downtown that’s organic, but who continually runs into roadblocks at every turn. But, he’s also relentlessly optimistic, and does what any truly optimistic go-getter would do, and makes lemonade out of those tart, tart lemons he’s been handed.
A couple of months ago (the press release says a month, but I know I heard him talking about this more than a month ago), Reyes began negotiations with a Dallas based company to hold a fashion show showcasing Latina beauty. The fashion show was to include Ms. Coors/Maxim Ellie Mercado as the headliner. All was well and good until this company requested that the Paseño models be 5’7” or taller and a size 6 or less. Now, let’s stop there … think really hard … How many Hispanic women do you know who fit that description? I know plenty of girls my age and younger who wear a size 6 or less, but 5’7”? I am 5’8” and I feel like a giant around my friends, male and female. I can probably count the number of women I know who are taller than 5’7” on one hand and I can almost guarantee that they’re Anglo or African-American.
That being said, one could have held a casting call, and I’m sure out of the 700,000 people in this city, 20 women fitting the description could have been found, but that is not the finer point. This is not an accurate depiction of Latina beauty. Allow me to quote Reyes directly from his press release:
“Among the differences are that many people of the border region are of shorter stature and more voluptuous in body type. To have a fashion show highlighting “Latina Beauty” while at the same time attaching conditions that eliminate the attributes of the very culture it intended the showcase is a discriminatory practice that Del Pueblo’s Storyteller’s Alliance will not support. Use of the term ‘Latina’, or any other ethnic group, as a way to garner money and attention must be accompanied by a sincere effort to represent that culture in a way that shows genuine respect for their particular history and culture. If a modeling show was organized to highlight African-American beauty in Atlanta, and a requirement that eliminated from consideration darker-skinned applicants was enforced, that would be accurately perceived as discriminatory and justifiably protested. This situation in El Paso is no different.”
In response to this request, Del Pueblo Press, in conjunction with the Storyteller’s Alliance, and Celestial Productions, held a fashion show last Friday at Club 101 to protest the unrealistic representation of Latina women. The show, entitled “All Races; All Sizes” hired models from across the melanin, height, weight, and ethnic spectrums, and was intended to showcase the wealth and diversity of beauty here on the border. Fashions were provided by local designers Jayhem Bang and Estylow Junktion, and other entertainment included a hip hop dance performance by Desert Eagle Productions, and the song stylings of Sunland Park Idol B.J. Pando.
The greater purpose of this performance was to make a point regarding our perceptions of ourselves in the larger context of national pressures. We are going through a phase in which we are trying to remake our city in the image of others, and for Reyes, the re-tooling of the traditional Latina image for the profit of another group of outsiders was just one more below-the-belt shot that could not be tolerated. I’ve asked these questions before and I’ll keep asking it again and again: Are we changing our city for ourselves or for others? Are we content in compromising our culture to satisfy the demands of the greater consumer culture, and if so, where will that lead us in 10 years? It reminds me of crash dieters, women who starve themselves for a week or two before a big function, so they can fit in that perfect dress and impress their peers only to slip back to their original weight within a week. She is no happier or healthier afterwards. The cycle ends up repeating itself, because her core issues of healthy lifestyle choices and self-esteem are never dealt with. We’re about to put our city through some serious dieting and cosmetic surgery. When will we ever really be happy with ourselves?
