Yesterday @ Mexico City centre.
This dancer comes from a region known as Huasteca. A lowland, lush and wet region near the Gulf coast known for its beautiful jolly music, excellent coffee and whimsical castles after an Englishman built one there in the early 20th century.
The song curiously says “somos de raza azteca” (we’re from aztec race) because it rhymes with Huasteca, but this is only a half truth (or a third truth more like) since the region has three main ethnic groups: nahua (the ethnicity the aztecs were), huasteco (the native group) and mixed (Spanish and indigenous); the whole culture is stemmed from this mixture. This region was subjugated by the Aztec Empire and the huastecos were used as slave labour and sacrifice material by their overlords, and to this day ‘teco’ (shortened from huasteco) is an ethnic slur that’s still used against them that goes back to before the Spanish conquest. The 1900’s saw a nationalistic impulse by the central government in Mexico city to push for a lay national culture and education system that tried to separate Mexican culture from its Spanish and Catholic roots (something quite impossible really) and set the image of the Aztec empire as this sort of golden past from which we all hail. This has had the side effect of also erasing the culture of other groups such as Mexicans of African and Asian descent, and natives from places outside Aztec control, which is most of Mexico; not only those of European (which in most cases are all mixed up since Mexico never had segregation policies in working order).
Still, this handsome gentleman coming down to the capital to proudly perform his art to make a little money to get by is a beautiful manifestation of the intricate and convoluted Hispanic culture and identity. Let’s all pause and admire