Shopping Town: U.S. Culture Seen through a Mexican Lens

Returning recently to the U.S. from Mexico and staying at a hotel in a suburb of Chicago, I was struck at a visceral level by the dramatic contrasts between that world and the world where I now live in Mexico. That is, I not only saw but felt the differences in my body. I was acutely aware of how the humanly constructed environment, el medio ambiente, communicates the primary cultural values of a society and shapes our experience, actions, values and world-view.

Cultural Environment

Our cultural environment is not something separate from us. It is like the air we breathe, we aborb it; it becomes indistinguishable from our very selves. The relationship is symbiotic, mutually self-sustaining. This post is an effort to illustrate, through one example, some of the differences in cultural environment betwen Mexico and the U.S., and communicate how they shape who we are. I use photos from both worlds, both cultures, to convey the contrasting experiences.

Mexico is rooted in two what may be called "classical" cultures, the Mesoamerican culture that developed in the center of what is now the Americas over more than three thousand years, and the Spanish culture that developed in Europe on a foundation of millenial-old Mediterranean cultures. While there are great differences between the two, traditional Mexican culture is a fusion of the two.

Cultural Space and Time: History

The most basic elements of cultural environment are those that define where we are in cultural time and space, that is, our location in a particular history. In Mexico, both its indigenous and Hispanic cultures have organized cultural space around a clearly defined centro, defined by structures that embody the religious and political powers at the heart of the culture. In Mesoamerican culture, these centros are public gathering spaces dominated by pirámides. In the Hispanic culture of colonial Mexico, el Centro is a public plaza ususally bounded by the town's principal Catholic iglesia and the offices of el gobierno. In such a space, you always know where you are, both physically and culturally.

Pirámides de los Purépecha 
 Ihautzio, Michoacán, México

Plaza Vasco de Quiroga o Plaza Grande

Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, México

En los Estados Unidos, es otra cosa. In suburban United States, the only centro is the shopping center. In fact, in the suburban town I was visiting, one of several shopping centers is called, "Shoppingtown." 

Shoppingtown would like you to believe that you are in the center of some ideal small town, but in no particular time or place. It´s main street is decorated with various cultural symbols that refer to a number of historical places and times. 

 

A French fountain with Egyptian sphinx-like lions       A sundial with Greek symbols of the zodiac                           

Other historical cultural referents include nineteenth century style steet lamps and columns imitating those of the Egyptian Temple of Dendur. The "town" also sponsors a summer classical music festival in its "town square."