Cholita

Thursday, March 14

In Bolivia and La Paz, the indigenous population is very present. Cholitas, or indigenous women, can be seen throughout the city. Their traditional clothing makes them easily recognizable.

Cholitas typically wear layered skirts, a knitted top or shawl, and a simple but very tall hat, which they often decorate with jewelry and brooches. Also typical are their long braids that hang down the cholitas' backs. While in the city of Cusco, one might get the feeling that people wearing traditional clothing are only doing so to pose and get paid for a photo with tourists, in Bolivia it seems to be much more common, even away from tourists, and appears more natural.

The clothing and calling themselves "cholita" are an expression of the indigenous people's pride in their origins and culture. The term "cholo/a" was originally used in a very derogatory way to describe the indigenous population, who unfortunately continue to face discrimination in many Latin American countries today, with indigenous people often being viewed as second-class citizens. However, the "cholitas" began to reclaim the term for themselves and thus managed to reinterpret this offensive term. Today, "cholitas" and their clothing stand for pride, diversity, and the preservation of indigenous culture. There are now many initiatives by courageous indigenous women who, for a long time, were discriminated because of either being a woman or their indigenous origins, and who are no longer willing to put up with this. The "Cholitas Escaladoras Bolivianas," for example, are a group of Aymara women who eventually grew tired of the fact that only the men in the village were trusted to go mountaineering and climb the snow-capped mountains of the Andes. So they formed their own mountaineering group, continued their mountaineering training, and now lead mountaineering tours to the country's highest peaks themselves. And all in their traditional clothing.

The "Cholitas luchadoras" are a group of indigenous women in Bolivia who are passionate about wrestling and regularly hold public wrestling shows. In this case, too, they naturally wear their traditional skirts, tops, and shawls.

Or the group "Imillaskate" — an association of younger indigenous women (according to their website, the daughters and granddaughters of the cholitas) whose passion is skateboarding. As with the other projects mentioned, the women here naturally wear the traditional "pollera" (a skirt made of many layers of fabric) and hats on their skateboards.

Although the indigenous population of Bolivia (and other Latin American countries) still faces daily discrimination, initiatives and projects like those of the "Cholitas Escaladoras" gives us hope.