My Bubble

Please excuse my bubble of whiteness.

Last night, David and I took a stroll to the zocalo, the city's central plaza. In it there were a ton of people playing music, dining, buying and selling goods, kids playing, people circumambulating the plaza. While we were there it struck me to wonder how many of the people were tourists from within Mexico. I'm sure plenty.

Then I realized that in a past post where I described the zocalo, I said that there didn't seem to be many tourists. What I should have said were there didn't seem to be many out-of-place güeros (light-skinned people), like myself. In my gringo understanding of the world, brown Hispanic people are all immigrants. But of course not, especially here in Mexico but also in my own state.

It's strange to be a (visible) minority. It's something I'm still thinking on quite a bit. When you walk in the street in Oaxaca, it's a sea of brown. I think I've seen no more than 50 white people and I've only seen 2 black people the whole time.

Calle Macedonio Alcala looking towards Santo Domingo