Guest Post: Leaving the Indio Behind
A known and admitted wrap-hoarder, I have owned probably thirty-ish wraps and I have sold... two. I love to lend them out and not see those wraps for months while some one else is enjoying them. I have given over a dozen away. I did sell one for double what my first car cost me because I could not justify that amount of money for a carrier, but this is the story of the other wrap. The only other wrap I have ever actually sold -- "the Indio."
My first wrap was a black and white and had a beautiful pattern. I bought it from another local mom who had bought it as a dye blank. When I saw it, she told me it was a “didy.” Didymos was literally one of the ONLY words I knew about wraps. Even though I had worn my older child in his ergo for over four years at that point, I had never heard of woven wraps. When my newborn decided she was going to weigh fifteen pounds at 8 weeks, her stretchy wrap was no longer cutting it. My local BWI group let me try some woven wraps at a meeting and the only thing I remember coming out of that meeting was, “all cotton Didymos in size 6 would be a great first wrap.” And here I was, at a swap with a local mom…
Me: Is this one of those non-stretchy wraps?
Her: Yeah, It’s a woven wrap. It’s a Didy, ‘Old Standard.’
Me: (*Didy, check) Oh. Is there a new standard?
Her: No, that’s the name of it. I had bought it as a dye blank, but am deciding to sell it.
Me: (*Cotton, check) Is it a Size 6?
Me: (*6, check!) I’ll take it!
Her: It’s $120, you can paypal me.
If you are laughing at how naive I sound in that above conversation, that is ok. I was. But I had my first woven wrap and it was LURVE!! You could not wipe the grin off my face for those first few weeks. I have never before experienced such a euphoric high from a product. I adored my Didy black and white, ‘Old Standard.’
And everything was right in the world.
Until that day at Costco. I still remember the face of the woman who came up to me, but I never learned her name. Like I had grown accustomed to, she complimented me on cute baby and my wrap and then very nonchalantly said, “my first wrap was an Indio.” “This is a Didy,” I corrected her, “Old Standard.” Then the bomb dropped, “but the pattern. The pattern is called Indio. It’s a Didy Indio. A very pretty one.” At that moment I felt like some one had sucked all the air out of the room. I don’t remember the rest of that conversation, but I do remember googling, “Didymos Indio,” in the Costco bathroom with my sleeping baby in my beloved wrap.
If I had to pick a single word from my childhood that meant ugly, uncivilized, unkempt, savage, or wrong, it was the word, “Indio.” Suddenly I had flashbacks to third-grade Cynthia who was trying on dance shoes and her dance teacher said loudly and to the class, “Si tienes pata de Indio, estos zapatos no te van a quedar y podemos ordenar otros.” (If you have Indio paws for feet, these [fine] shoes won’t fit you, but we have others we can order.) I have never squished my foot into shoes so tight and so uncomfortable in my life. I didn’t want to have, “Indio feet.” A few weeks later I quit Folkorico dance after five years. It was my first love, but the shear thought of having to admit that the shoes didn’t fit me correctly was enough for me to give it up.
You see, even as a young child, I knew what the word Indio meant. It was why I spent almost every night in second grade asleep with those pink sponge rollers in my head. It was the only way that my hair would curl (it was the eighties, y’all). I desperately wanted Cindy Brady pigtails and my long, dark (very very very) straight hair only had one name, “pelo de Indio.”
Was the church particularly full today? The priest would say, “hasta los indios han bajado de las lomas.” (Even the savages have come down from the hills.) You see, church is something civilized people attend, when it was particularly full, it’s not that there were suddenly more civilized people (they’ve always come to church), it’s that the Indios have come to their senses and decided to join us.
When you don’t put make up on? Cara de Indio. (Indio face)
If you spend too much time in the sun (getting darker)? Color Indio (Indio color)
Don’t use your table manners? Comer como Indio (Eating like an Indio)
Being loud and boisterous? Portandote Indio (Act like an Indio)
Even when I started babywearing in 2009, a response I heard from my family quite a bit was, “como la India Maria.” (Like the Indio, Maria.) It was not a compliment.
Imagine my shock as I learned that this thing I was wrapping my baby in was named after all those put downs and insecurities I had growing up as a child. But the derogatory nature of the word predates this child, me, my mother, her mother and even her mother. The word has had a long history of oppression. Do you think that the people Christopher Columbus met called themselves Indio? That was a word given to them, a label that now has hundreds of years of history and oppression behind it and millions of people made to feel less through the use of it. I am but one voice. My story and my experiences are but my own.
But I am not alone. In fact, my voice has been paltry compared to those who have had this campaign going for years and today they had an amazing, all be it imperfect, victory. Didymos has said that they are changing the name of the Indio wrap. Hard Stop, Y’all. A huge corporation that has been the industry leader for FORTY YEARS is changing the name of it’s flagship product because of an organic grass-roots movement of conscientious caregivers. Perhaps I am too old and jaded, but I never thought I’d see this day. These babywearers fought the man and won today. And although not a single one has ever met me, has ever known about my childhood shoe insecurities, has ever heard the story of the wrap that shook my world at Costco, they fought for me. They have made a difference to me and they deserve my thanks and appreciation. Thank you for fighting the good fight. Thank you for not giving up. Thank you for this seemingly small victory, it is not nearly as small as it seems.
In the end, I sold that Indio wrap in the same Costco parking lot (true story). A thing that had originally brought so much joy represented hundreds of years of oppression and roughly $3k in therapy. I looked at my little brown baby carried by my fat (Indio) arms, walking in my wide (Indio) feet, and playing with my straight (Indio) hair and I smiled hoping that whatever her insecurities were (because we all will have them), they wouldn’t be wrapped (literally) around this negative idea of being, “Indio.”
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Cynthia Soliz is a liability attorney in Austin, TX, a volunteer with BWI Greater Austin and BWI National, and the okayest mom to The Fuss and The Little Bit. The opinions expressed above are strictly her own (damn right) and she received no compensation for her writing. She is an avid (borrowed) babywearer and blogs enthusiastically at various other sites. She really hopes her mother and grandmother aren’t reading this because despite the tone of this writing, her childhood was quite lovely… and she can’t take the Mexican guilt.
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