Blog 4: MODERNIZING OAXACA

MODERNIZING OAXACA

            The scheduled walking tour for today seemed like a perfect opportunity to take more pictures of Oaxaca.  As I took photographs of the landscape, I was reminded of the discussion of pictures in the reading Portraits of a Lady by Mark Overmyer-Velazquez.  The city elites during the Porfirian period used photography to “rationalize the city’s administration and organize its workers into discernable categories” (pg. 88).  This was the first move towards modernization; the pictures became part of a system of surveillance and used to classify people into different groups.  This idea of modernization was further discussed in Visions of the Emerald City by Mark Overmyer-Velazquez.  “Elites sought, in a sense, to rewrite the city as a readable text infused with the nationhood and modernity they so desired for their country,” (pg. 40).  Elites broke the modernization process into three steps; the construction of new space, the incorporation of historical symbolism, and the regulation of the city through police and new laws.  The outcome of these three steps is seen throughout the city today.

            When we walked a few blocks over from the Becari School, there was another side of the city we had yet to see.  People who lived here were of higher class, proved by the lack of graffiti on the walls and the high-end model cars on the streets.  However, it was the arrangement of the flowers and trees that caught my attention the most.  The parks we walked through were filled with a variety of plant species.  As stated in Visions of the Emerald City, “city officials made sure that the capital’s gardens became the cornerstone of their Porfirian spatial designs,” (pg. 48).  Not only was it beautiful to see the mixture of flowers, bushes, and trees everywhere, but it was interesting to think about the symbolism included in the landscape design.  I learned in the reading that “in 1885 Luis Mier y Teran ordered the construction of a garden for the general hospital, in which medicinal plants and herbs were cultivated,” (pg. 50).  I found this concept very interesting and looked for more places where plants were representative of the area.  The Zocalo is the center of the city, and the current home to hundreds of poinsettia plants.  This is appropriate because Oaxaca is largely Catholic and poinsettia’s are known as the Christmas flower, but I was interested to find out if there was more significance for the poinsettia’s.  As it turns out, there is a legend in which a child who was too poor to buy a present for Christ near Christmas picked a weed from the side of the road.  When he reached the church, the weed blossomed in red and green flowers.  The poinsettia’s at the Zocalo not only celebrate the Christmas holiday, but are a symbol of an old city legend.  This is an excellent example of the first two steps of modernization by the city elites; constructing new space and incorporating their heritage.  The third step, regulation, can also be included through the maintenance of the flowers by gardeners.  It is possible to find symbolism in other areas as well.  Parks have a wide variety of flowers and trees that are not native to the area; a symbol of the city’s acceptance to new and foreign people, and their ability to intermix.  The front of the Santa Domingo Church is filled with mescal plants.  Perhaps this is because mescal is a native plant and therefore shows the church’s nationalism.  It is also the plant used to create the alcohol mescal and can be a symbol of the church’s history for sources of wealth.  Gardens are just one example of modernization; there are statues, streets, and buildings as well that show the work of city elites during the Porfirian period.

Chelsea Williams