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judy smith Sep 2016
In Bolivia’s capital city La Paz, indigenous women known as cholas have long been stigmatized for wearing their traditional clothes: bowler hats, handmade macramé shawls, tailored blouses, layered pollera skirts, and lots of elaborate jewelry.

But for the past 11 years, fashion designer Eliana Paco Paredes has been chipping away at that stigma with her line of chola clothing—which she debuted at New York City’s Fashion Week last week. That’s a big deal for a type of clothing that has historically been disparaged in Bolivia because it was worn by poor, indigenous women. For a long time, many indigenous women couldn’t wear chola clothing in certain professions.

Bringing indigenous designs to New York is a huge step for Paco Paredes, though not the first time her clothing has received international recognition. In 2012, she designed a shawl for Spain’s Queen Sofia.

But Paco Paredes’s Fashion Week show is also an important moment for indigenous cholas. Until recently, these women “could be refused entry to certain restaurants, taxis and even some public buses,” writes Paula Dear for BBC News. Such an international spotlight on Paco Paredes’s designs will hopefully increase the acceptance of indigenous women and their culture in Bolivia.

La Paz’s mayor, Luis Revilla, wrote in an email that his city’s response to Paco Paredes’s Fashion Week debut has been a feeling of pride. He hopes that “her designs, which reflect the identity of local woman from La Paz, generate a trend in the global fashion industry,” he says.

“I also hope that in time, people from different geographies of the planet begin to use some of the elements that make the dress of chola,” he says.

Fresh off her Fashion Week debut, Paco Paredes spoke with National Geographic about her clothing and how opportunities for cholas are changing.

What is your approach to your designs?

What we want to show on this runway is the outfits’ sophistication. But the thing I don’t want to lose, that I always want to preserve, is the fundamental essence of our clothing. Because what we want, in some way, is to show the world that these outfits are beautiful, that they can be worn in La Paz by a chola, but they can also be worn by you, by someone from Spain, by a woman from Asia; that these women can fall in love with the pollera, the hat, the macramé shawl combined with an evening gown. These are the outfits we want to launch.

Do you think it's important that you, as a chola, came to Fashion Week in New York?

Of course! I think that it's very important because to have a runway of this international magnitude, with designers of this caliber, with international models, with a completely professional atmosphere, fills me with pride. And it's very important because of the fact that people can see my culture.

Who buys your clothing?

I have a store in La Paz, a national store. Here in La Paz, in Bolivia, this clothing is doing very well, because it's what many women wear day to day.

At a national level I can tell you we have the pleasure to work with many regions: Oruro, Potosí, Santa Cruz, Cochabamba. At an international level, we dress many people in Peru, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and some products we make go to Spain, Italy. So through this we want to open an international market with sophisticated outfits that are Eliana Paco designs.

We're getting people to learn about what this clothing is at another level, and many women outside of Bolivia can and want to wear these outfits. They've fallen in love with these designs that they can say come from La Paz, Bolivia.

How are opportunities changing for cholas in La Paz?

It's definitely a revolution that's been going on for about 10 years, because the cholas paceñas [cholas from La Paz] have made their way into different areas—social, business, economic, political. And look at this fashion event, where nobody could've imagined that suddenly so many chola designs are on the runway with some of the most famous designers, like Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada, where they have lines of different types of designs at an international level.

The chola paceña has been growing in all of these aspects. And for us, this is very important because now being chola comes from a lot of pride—a lot of pride and security and satisfaction.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/long-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses
Kayla Hicks Feb 2011
This is for those of you who have dreams that never come true
and for you cholas who bang
and you cholos who slang
getting ready to shoot
and after you do
you realize you have two of your own fingers staring back at you
This is for the *******'s and go to hells
you say throwing up a finger
pointed directly to who you go to and pray to at night
If God's so great
why does he take our people away
so we can meet them in another life
which is supposed to be more bright?
This is supposed to be the land of freedom
the land of happy,
but i'm looking around and see only successful immigrants starin' at me
My generation is the one who has to make a difference
because the ones before us had the world in their hands
but let it slip like butter
so everyone else has to be in the gutter
and now we're left to suffer
cleaning up everyone's mistakes
the only question i have is why
and different people answer with the same reply
because
'You Are The Future!!'
This is for all the homosexuals
who are supposed to have rights
but don't receive them
because once gay marriage is allowed
the ******* of the United States of America
are gonna take over the world?
Who are you to tell me and my
gay and lesbian peers that it is wrong to love
I say me as in bisexual
because i am not going to limit my love
to only guys, or only girls
i will love whoever i may choose
because as a citizen of America
I have options
This is for all you pro-lifers
who support abortion
shouting spread peace and love
and the government who makes choices
without the opinion of we the people
but who's we anyway
let me stand on a steeple
and preach to you
We The People
did not want war!
Ceida Uilyc Mar 2018
They call us Madrasis
Incarcerated Buddhas
Not Cholas nor the Devadasis
But agglomerated Cheras.
Who knew the Pandyas, anyway?

They call us Archetypes
On Iridescent Thalis
Of Sambars and rice cakes in thin stripes
Slurping on leafy banana like malis.
Who knew the God’s Own Country anyway?

They call us Annas
Sandalwood Veerappans

Lemon for Evil at four annas
Skirting Lungi blooms and Hairy Chappans*
Where is Madras anyway!
*Hindi Word= Mali= Gardener
*The Famous South Indian Dacoit of Sandalwoods
*Hindi Word= Chappan= Chest, Wealth

A commentary on how people in the North Segregate people of South India. Although subtle, oftentimes, harshness of the racism pulls you to freefall through bores of molten shivers.
To North Indians out there, I’m not a Madrasi. I’m not a Mallu. Call me a Keralite. Call me a Malayali. I will rebut regionalism with another sharded verse!

— The End —