A Mexicana in India: First Impressions

It's my third morning in Delhi but already it feels like I've been here forever. So far, the smells and sounds of India remind me of the smells and sounds of Mexico. The congested streets with honking cars & motorcycles and the smell of burning wood used to light fires, all remind me of Mexican cities. It doesn't look or smell just like Mexico but the similarities are sufficient that I feel at home in Delhi.

The night I arrived, I was exhausted from having waited for two hours for my baggage at the airport but stepping out into the streets of Delhi felt so natural in a way that European cities never have that effect on me. I love Vienna but I still remember stepping out into the streets and feeling as if though I had arrived in a completely alien world. Eventually, it felt like home but always when I have returned I feel like an outsider.

I was worried that I'd feel that way in India. I worried that I would feel too much like an outsider and that I'd feel lost in this new culture. While I do feel that way to a certain degree, the feeling is more akin to the one I feel when I go to Mexico. It's home but not home. It feels uncomfortable but not too uncomfortable. It is welcoming but skeptical of me. It is feeling out of place but of belonging somehow.

There are differences, however. At a glance, people in Mexico and most of Latin America deeply value beauty and appearance—not that Indians don't but for many of them it doesn't seem to be high on their list of priorities. I was talking about this with Dave. Dave thinks that it's because in countries like Mexico and the United States, physical appearance is put on display whereas in India it is not. Women here are discouraged from wearing short skirts or revealing clothing. They do not show off their legs or their cleavage or most of their bodies actually. They do not feel pressured to take great time and pains to groom themselves the way people in the United States or in Latin American countries feel pressured to do so.

Similarly, men have no incentive or pressure to go to the gym and pump iron until they are rippling and bulging with muscle. Despite the India media and Bollywood movies which encourage the Westernization standard of beauty, the people on TV and on film seem so far removed from most Indian's every day lives that they feel little pressure to build up muscles and show off legs. Given the effects Westernization and industrialization are having in cities like Delhi, I wonder how long this will last.

A couple of weeks ago a former Venezuelan beauty queen died due to a cosmetic procedure—she was getting her buttocks filled with silicone. Instead of staying in the rear area, the silicone traveled to some of her organs and her brain ( I think) and killed her. An extreme example, but cosmetic surgery is frequently encouraged in Venezuela and other Latin American countries as a way to achieve beauty. It doesn't really seem to be something that is encouraged in India. As a result, it seems at first glance that Mexicans—especially the middle and upper class Mexicans and pretty much all Americans, are more physically attractive than most Indians—at least if you go by the Western standard of beauty. Granted, I have only been to one city and I've only been out in about the city for a couple of days, so I may be entirely wrong in this observation but it's interesting to me at least that the first thing I noticed was how attractive or unattractive people here are. It makes me wonder what that says about me.

Mexicana goes to India, Prologue

This is how you know you don't quite belong in this country: you fill out an American passport application, turn in all the correct documentation and anxiously wait for it to arrive--your key to freedom! Then just when you think you can't wait any more, your passport arrives...missing your second last name.That extra name that makes sense in Mexico baffles Americans. The name that any other Mexican would acknowledge while simultaneously drop becomes the bane of your existence because no one can figure out who you are.

What to do about a person who uses their first last name on a license but then has both last names on a birth certificate or certificate of citizenship? If you have no idea, don't worry, you are not alone because the government doesn't really know what to do with you either.

I thought that when I was replacing my passport that it wouldn't be too difficult. I am an American citizen after all. I have the documentation to prove it. I follow instructions. This shouldn't be too bad.

But wait that's not where the story begins. The story begins with a plane ticket. I bought a plane ticket to India. India's on my bucket list but more importantly India is the other love of my boyfriend Dave. If India were a woman, I'd be worried. Thankfully, India is a country and so I am going to India to taste the air and inhale the food--or something like that.

I bought a ticket. I hadn't gotten my passport, yet, but I figured that was a technicality. There is a reason why travel websites tell you to get your passport before you book a ticket. The name I entered included my first and second last names. I was thinking that my passport (once I'd actually gotten it, of course) would have both my last names since my birth certificate has both of my last names and my certificate of citizenship has both last names and so does my social security card. But oh no. No, no, no this was not to be because you see my driver's license had only my first last name.

A long time ago my parents had gotten me a state ID with just my first last name because a second last name--my mother's surname would simply be too confusing for Americans to wrap their minds around and so to make it easy, so that I would not be known as Ms. Flores instead of Ms. Ortiz, they chopped it off. It made sense. I mean even I was confused by having two last names when I was a little girl trying to figure out why I had no middle name but two last names. When I got my license the secretary of state used my information from my state ID perpetuating the use of just one last name.

So there I was sitting at work holding my brand new passport with my mouth wide open because suddenly I could not use the ticket I had bought. I tried calling Orbitz since I had booked my ticket through them. They told me I had to cancel my ticket and then book a new one--what sense does that make? Shouldn't it be easy to change your name on a ticket you bought for yourself?

If only it had been that simple. But no, I would have had to pay an extra $1000 in order to cancel and rebook my ticket. It would be way less expensive to change the name on my passport, right? I mean I had requested the use of my second last name in my passport application so it was their fault, right?

Nope. It was my fault. At least that's what the nasty lady who is one of the managers at the Chicago Passport Agency yelled at me through her bullet proof (but not sound proof) window. After letting her know that she was being rude, she dispensed with me by sending me to another window. Explain to someone else this business about your two last names cuz I have no idea what you are talking about. The second man I spoke to was very nice but by then I was too upset to listen. I left in tears. Would I ever get to leave the country again?

Luckily, Dave came to my rescue by further investigating wh. at could be done about my passport. And what I had to do was this: go to the DMV, have them change my name on my license, bring it back to the Passport Agency, apply for a new passport under that name and pay the full fee, again. Still cheaper than a $1000. So after much grumbling and gnashing of teeth, I went. I returned to the Passport Agency and nearly $400 later, I had a new passport, a state ID and a driver's license with my full name.

At last my freedom was assured! India here I come!

I just hope no one calls me Ms. Flores or I may scream.