Wal-Mart is Mexican, Too
 Gordon Dillow - OC Register
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 |  | I asked several locals if the Wal-Mart is a good or bad thing, and they seemed almost baffled by the question. 'It's the Wal-Mart,' they said with a shrug. |  | |
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico – Even in this pleasant seaside town on the western coast of Mexico, a thousand miles away, there are some distinctly American experiences from which it is impossible to escape.
One is Hollywood movie stars behaving scandalously.
And the other is Wal-Mart.
Let's take the scandalous stars first, since without them the city of Puerto Vallarta as it's currently constituted probably wouldn't even exist.
Founded in 1851, Puerto Vallarta was primarily a supply and shipping port for the mining operations in the jungle-covered mountains that loom over the town. It had a cathedral and a city hall and a cobble-stone street central area – and for the first century or so of its existence nothing much had ever happened here.
Then in 1963 Hollywood director John Huston chose this unknown village as the location for the film version of playwright Tennessee Williams' "Night of the Iguana," starring Richard Burton and Ava Gardner. (If these names are unfamiliar to you younger readers, ask your parents – or maybe your grandparents.)
The movie itself probably wouldn't have fundamentally changed the history of Puerto Vallarta, except that at the time Mr. Burton was having a torrid love affair with Elizabeth Taylor, who was still married to singer Eddie Fisher, and who during the filming of the movie came to Puerto Vallarta to quite openly ensconce herself in an illicit love nest with Mr. Burton.
Yes, I know that by today's standards of Hollywood behavior – or simply behavior in general - that may not sound like much. But at the time, it was extremely hot stuff.
Thus Puerto Vallarta became synonymous with steamy tropical romance, and the tourists started coming, transforming the town forever. Even almost half a century later, Mr. Burton's and Miss Taylor's role in this transformation is still celebrated by a life-size marble statue of the pair near the center of town. (Mr. Fisher's contribution is not similarly honored.)
Today, Puerto Vallarta is a bustling city of some 350,000 souls – thousands of full- and part-time American expatriates among them – stretched along a dozen miles of white sand beaches. Founded upon and dedicated to up-scale tourism, it is clean and prosperous beyond the dreams of many Mexican cities. And while the older sections of town retain the cobblestone streets and crumbling sidewalks and ramshackle "charm" of Old Mexico, the newer parts of town are a monument to American mass marketing – high-rise beachfront condos, Burger King, Starbucks, and, of course, the Wal-Mart Supercenter.
The Wal-Mart, which opened in 2002, is a looming presence. If you arrive here by cruise ship, as I did, the vast, stadium-size Wal-Mart and accompanying Sam's Club is the first thing you see when you dock and the last thing you see when you leave. Far more so than the cathedral or city hall, it is the focal point from which directions are given, even by the locals; what you are looking for is either near the Wal-Mart, behind the Wal-Mart or beyond the Wal-Mart. The destination boards on many city buses say, simply, "Wal-Mart."
Some American tourists seem to resent this; apparently they prefer a quaint Mexico to a modern, developed one, and would be happier if the Mexican people didn't have the same opportunity to buy cheap products that we Americans enjoy. (Because it caters to so many tourists and ex-pats, prices at the Puerto Vallarta Wal-Mart aren't as low as at other Mexican Wal-Mart's; some items, such as imported wines, are even higher than in the U.S.)
But as far as I can tell during an admittedly brief visit, the locals here don't view the advent of Wal-Mart in the same way so many Americans do – that is, as an invasion of price-cutting, wage-slaving, non-union Huns. I asked several locals if the Wal-Mart is a good or bad thing, and they seemed almost baffled by the question.
"It's the Wal-Mart," they said with a shrug – which is to say, it's simply a fact of life.
And there probably is no turning back. With 150,000 employees nationwide, Wal-Mart is already Mexico's largest private employer – and if the wages for those jobs are even lower than those in the U.S., thousands of people still line up for them, while millions more crowd the aisles.
Yes, I know, some people will bemoan the fact that with every new Wal-Mart or Starbucks or Burger King, Mexico becomes just a little bit more like the United States – although given the unemployment and poverty in so much of Mexico, I don't see how that's such a bad thing.
But the fact is that, like it or not, the world is changing, and we as a nation are agents of that change.
Sometimes, as in Puerto Vallarta, we change it with our movie stars behaving scandalously.
And sometimes we change it with a Wal-Mart.
Contact the writer: GLDillow(at)aol.com |
Vallarta Weddings
Vallarta Living | December 2007 
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