I get a lot of questions from tourists, when I’m hanging out with tourists, when they hear I am a student of Bolivian history. Favorite questions so far have been a general, “So tell me about Che…” and the ever baffling, “so you’ve hung out with Bolivians, right? What are they like?”
Um, well. What are Bolivians like? I mean, the closer I get to know a place, the more difficulty I have making broad generalizations about the population. And I wouldn’t even claim that I know Bolivia particularly well, although I do know plenty about Bolivia. And I have talked to real Bolivians, unlike, apparently, the people who asked me this question.
My go to response at moments like these has always been that what surprised me the most about Bolivia when I first came here (in 2006) was the degree of mobilization and political engagement on the part of most everyone I met. Now granted, the country was in the middle of voting on a new constitution in 2006; you might expect mobilization at a time like this. Also, I believe that in the last five years the political tone of conversations I’ve noticed has changed a bit. But many people in Bolivia are still, for better or worse, more likely to start a roadblock somewhere on any given day than even the good protestors of Madison. There’s a pretty good chance that my taxi driver/neighbor on the bus will ask me, within a few minutes of us starting a conversation, what I think about Evo Morales, and then go off on their own explanation of what’s wrong or right (mostly wrong) about the world today. I’m not going to claim that Bolivians are somehow just naturally more attuned to oppression, but I think there is a cultural context for talking about things in terms of oppression, the global economy, and political action.
Which is why I was so surprised when one of the tourists I met last night followed up the question, “so what are Bolivians like?” with, “Doesn’t it seem like they just sort of accept their position and not try to make their lives better?”
Um, no. That’s not really how it seems to me at all. I was really at a loss how to respond to that comment. Maybe not least because that’s exactly the opposite of what I study. I am trying to write about people who have worked damn hard, against some pretty stacked odds, to change their lives for the better. This has not always (or even mostly) worked, and nor do I always agree with what’s being said or done. But it is impressive.
A friend in Oruro suggested that the destruction of the mining economy and miner’s labor movement has resulted in a decline in the quality of political education and engagement. This is a pretty common leftist-marxist understanding of what’s going on, and I see why a lot of people are critical of many of the political movements right now. Especially if they see Evo Morales as more power-hungry than honest in his deployment of indigeneity and critiques of globalization. But I also think that the terms of political engagement have changed in the last 30 years, and not because of the firing of the miners and their labor federations ceasing to dominate politics (it’s the other way around!). Bolivians, by and large, seem to me to be trying to figure out the best way to be in the world and the best way to make life better. I see this as a constant in Bolivian history and also in global history. I think most people want to make their lives better, and whether their vision of that is macro or micro that’s what people do to live. And noticing this is mostly a matter of perspective: if you’re looking for one kind of engagement and don’t see it, you may assume no engagement.
This is something I’ve noticed among some of the European tourists I’ve talked to (not to generalize… um, but it has only been with Europeans that I’ve had iterations of this conversation) who seem to want to find some kind of Bolivian essence. They are often well-intentioned, but what they notice is the ways that they are made uncomfortable in their dealings with people who interact with them during their travels, so they take that as some kind of inherent trait/sign of difference. It bugs me. For example, one woman said, “Well, it seems like Bolivians would rather put something off and deal with the consequences in the future than be proactive. Like, for example, when the bus runs out of gas because they didn’t bother to fill up with petrol before leaving.” My first thought was, “Oh, that sounds like something I would do,” and my second thought was, “That’s never actually happened to me in Bolivia.” I’m sure it happened to her (more than once though? I doubt it) but I wonder whether there was another explanation. A gas shortage, for example, which has been happening a lot. Or a road block. Did I mention those happen a lot?
So, yeah. I mean, everyone who visits Bolivia at some point and spends enough time here is going to complain about the things they aren’t used to dealing with (electric showers that shock you when you try to turn them off or on, that special flavor of cheese that seems to be the only thing you can get here, nescafe are my favorites right now) but those are structural (or often, lack of infrastructural) things. I do notice that archives, for example, aren’t always open when they say they will be. It’s not really possible to buy a bus ticket online and assume that it will leave at a certain hour, like you can in the states. These things are both structural and cultural, I suspect. But the people themselves? Different wherever you go. Often a little shy, I think. Kind of like me. Act differently around you if they perceive you to be a tourist for sure.
I guess what I might have asked, had I thought about it a little more, is “Do you think that there is a reason for what you’re seeing beyond, Bolivians must be different from me?”
