‘Ripped and Torn’ by Amaranta Wright
A new book about globalization and Latin America has been published in the UK. Ripped and Torn
Hired by Levi’s to help the denim manufacturer understand the youth culture of Latin America, Wright traveled extensively through Central and South America. (Question: is there only one type of youth culture in Latin America? Probably not. Is there even a Latin American culture? Or, is it something that varies from nation to nation. My sense is more of the latter, but this is going off into a different topic).
In her travels Wright developed a sense that the multinationals were exploiting the social structure of Latin America. (But isn’t the clothing industry by its nature based on exploiting the consumer?) Obviously, this isn’t what Levi wanted to hear. Wright turned her observations into what appears to become a good selling book rather than be a marketing authority for the multinational.
While Wright is referred to as a native of Buenos Aires, the British press can’t quite point out that she wasn’t raised in Argentina. They all mention that her parents are British rather than Argentine. Only the Guardian indicates that she was raised in London rather than Buenos Aires. That certainly gives one a different perspective on the continent. Often, however, distance does provide a legitimate viewpoint. But in reading these reviews, I can’t help get the sense that Wright is trying to recapture a Latin America that she never experienced, an idealized one that she dreamed about and hoped for but never quite experienced.
The Independent calls this book a “stirring read” that is “marred by some radical chic posturing”.
I wonder if Wright’s experience with being disillusioned with corporate marketing was based so much on Latin America or simply with corporate marketing itself. I suspect that if she traversed the US that she also would find a youth culture that is heavily exploited by corporate desires to turn a profit. Perhaps the globalization theme of this book is more of an editors/publishers decision to capitalize on a popular theme, especially when combined with the exotic local color of Latin America.
Miranda France, the British journalist who authored the now dated Bad Times In Buenos Aires
Miranda France goes on later in the review to describe the flaws of the book, “Dithering between polemic and travelogue, she ends up, much of the time, hopelessly wringing her hands, lamenting the awful state of the continent….The argument is both simpler and more complicated than she allows: companies want to sell us things, and we want to buy them. The giant US conglomerates are ubiquitous - but we can use tools, including legislation and self-restraint, to protect ourselves from their worst excesses.”
Ripped and Torn sounds like the passion of a youthful idealist.
Another review of Ripped and Torn is at the FLY site, which calls itself the “Official Guide to Left-field Goings on Around the World”, okay.: “What one gets from this book, however is a series of poignant vignettes of people’s lives across a continent; drawing our attention to the unique instance of each place and time as well as highlighting common threads and concerns felt from Milton Keynes to Medellin. Comforting notions about the ‘other’ or the ‘developing’ world seem to have lost whatever purchase they may have once had.”
Finally, The Guardian posted its review of Ripped and Torn this weekend under the heading “An anagram for evil”. Levi’s? Well, that sounds omnimous. Angue Macqueen, for the Guardian, writes “The year’s travel transformed her, turning into a rite of passage during which she explored her own past, and her relationship to this alluring but tragic continent. The result is a passionate, fresh polemic, as much about globalisation and the individual as about Latin America. It is also a polemic desperately searching for a modern language to describe its age-old dilemmas of class and exploitation….Wright rejects the way in which multinationals are not only destroying the concept of the nation state but undermining any genuine personal identity, all the while wrapping themselves in a language of uniqueness and individuality.”
Macqueen concludes “But as the book progressed, I desperately wanted this to develop into something more searching and less sentimental - the vibrant immediacy is also the weakness of the book - not because I disagree with the sentiments but because of the knee-jerk nature of the response: the poor are always more genuine; they contain within them the soul of the continent; they always dance better.”
Throughout my reading of these reviews I couldn’t help but think of a column I read last year by Andres Oppenheimer, “Guatemala’s Distinctive Look is Rapidly Vanishing” (Dec 16, 2004 Miami Herald). In this column Oppenheimer laments the disappearance of traditional clothing among Guatemalan Indians for blue jeans and made-in-China sweaters. He noted how on a recent visit to Guatemala that most Indian men were wearing blue jeans and name brand athletic shoes, clothing that they had gotten from relatives in the US or found at second-clothing shops in Guatemala.
As he talked to others in Guatemala Oppenheimer came away with a different perspective. One university professor told him, “You want our Indians to look nice for the picture, but they want to get ahead in life.”
Oppenheimer also pointed out, “Many Guatemalans reminded me that the Indian dress that I and most tourists cherish so much are nothing but a relic of Spanish oppression: The Spanish conquistadors divided the country among themselves and forced their respective Indian servants to dress differently to prevent them from fleeing their territory….Today, there are economic reasons behind the change: A Mayan Indian dress takes months of hard knitting and costs the equivalent of $500, while a second-hand made-in-China sweater imported from the United States goes for $1 or $2. Thus, many Indians keep their traditional dresses for weddings or other special ceremonies.”
Oppenheimer, himself a native of Argentina, closes with this thought, “Globalization is changing the look of Guatemala’s Indians. It’s most likely for the better, but you can’t help but feel that something is getting lost.”
Of course, blue denim was once the native dress of field hands and the working class in the US. While Levi’s are expensive and fashionable everywhere, back in my native Tennessee nothing conveys the image of a poor farmer more than a pair of blue denim overalls.
And Amaranta Wright? She has started a new project to fight global inequality through a magazine called Bulb that helps people find “guilt free clothes”, stay up-to-date on the “global free party scene”, and fight “anti-gypsy propaganda”.