Oaxaqueño vs. Chiapaneco July 3, 2022
After a month living in Oaxaca, it is time for an initial assessment of our new home, at least by way of comparison with our previous city of residence, San Cristóbal de las Casas.
Geographically, there are similarities. Both cities fill a high valley surrounded by rounded foothills less than a thousand feet high. Oaxaca City, however, is two-thousand feet lower than San Cris, and thus is warmer, with daytime highs often above 80 and lows dipping only to about 60. Similarly, Oaxaca receives substantially less rain than Chiapas. The humidity here hovers around 50%, and it shows in the dry vegetation, as the hills lack the thick conifer forest found to the east. For those seeking a Mediterranean climate, the sweet spot at this latitude in Mexico is confirmed to be about a mile above sea level. Like Comitan and Cuernavaca, Oaxaca de Juarez may rightly be considered as yet another land of eternal spring, which pleases my appendages greatly.
Demographically, Oaxaca’s population is about three times that of San Cristobal, so gone are the days when I could hope to walk across the entire city in an hour. Foot traffic downtown is congested to an extent one would expect to find in a major city, which Oaxaca most certainly is. Not only is it a world-renowned cultural center, something it shares with San Cris, it is the seat of state government, with a significant university system.
In this sense, Oaxaca possesses a population base utterly distinct from San Cristobal. Chiefly, there is a middle class of working professionals. While San Cris is overwhelmingly poor and mostly indigenous, speaking languages unfamiliar even to fellow Mexicans, Oaxaca City, despite its colonial architecture, feels more modern, even urbane. People wear suits and ties and drive nice cars. The sidewalks are wide enough for walking. The intersections have streetlights and some semblance of order. The parks are not overflowing with destitute Maya families. Only the irrepressible nomadic white hippies go shoeless. Most of the street dogs are on leashes.
The tourists are of a different class as well, more interested in fine dining and art galleries, somewhat less consumed with mystical healing and alternative consciousnesses. The cost of living is significantly higher than that of Chiapas, so Americans and Europeans living hand to mouth do not stay here for long. Moreover, the bohemian immigrant venders that tend to clog the Andadors of San Cristobal with their homemade goods do not find a friendly climate here for hawking their wares. On the contrary, Oaxaca is especially radicalized against the invasion of the outsiders, and the concomitant gentrification, that has become so prevalent in Mexico, especially since the pandemic. “Gringo Go Home” is a common line of graffiti. I know these angry youngsters are not necessarily talking to me, but, then again, I think they are.
An historic perspective may cast these two cities in sharpest relief. Spain may have have planted its flags in both places, almost simultaneously, in the early 16th Century, building their ornate churches atop native foundations, and establishing European dominance, but Chiapas has always been the frontier—La Frontera—an outlier, forever forgotten, stubbornly resistant to the occupation. Oaxaca, meanwhile, could not differ more in this respect. Far from being distant or alien, Oaxaca is absolutely essential to what it means to be Mexican. Like the mariachis of Jalisco, the ceramics of Puebla, and the jarochos and jalapeños of Veracruz, Oaxaca is iconic. The birthplace of Mezcal. The land of 7 Moles. Home to the greatest statesmen. Gravesite to magnificent ancient civilizations. Distillation of the richest of flavors. Southern pearl of the Pacific. Oaxaqueño Es Mexicano.
Finally, lest I forget, the most important consideration when comparing and contrasting these two remarkable cities is how I am affected personally. The contrasts say it all—I am not wet, I am not shivering from cold, I am not vomiting from bad water, I am not checking to see which roads have been hijacked by gangs, I am not wincing from explosions, nor flinching from the heartbreaking faces of poverty and neglect, nor wondering what form the next insurrection will take. I can buy real bacon. Need I say more?