When I went to Thailand I was struck how us western tourists were doing our skin damage by tannning, while at the same time spotting countless whitening creams in shops for Thai people wanting to become whiter and damaging their skin in doing so.
I was wondering what the Latin American perspective is. Is it fashionable to tan? You do hear of people tanning in Brazil quite a lot. Is there any status attached to being pale in some places? Or is does it not matter much either way?
I do realise this is a big group of people who are probably not homogenous, but I’d be happy to hear from anyone with expertise about a particular country or background in this region.
There’s definitely a bias in Nicaragua. Check out the contestants for Miss Nicaragua. Very white compared to the average Nicaraguan. However, as compared with places like India/China/SE Asia, class is much more important than race. So you will see (at least among men) dark people being called negro (black) or diablo (devil), and lighter people being called blanco (or more typically gringo) without offense. In this line, I think the Miss Nicaragua thing represents the class divide more. If you look in their bios most are at university or have already graduated.
I can speak only for Brazil-Brazilians spend a LOT of time at the beach. Brazilian girls consider tan lines to be very sexy-so they do a lot of beaching.
Oddly enough, being dark skinned is desireable in Brazil, although very black people are discriminated against-go figure.
Of course, if you are black, and have plenty of money, you are fine-the Brazilians have a saying “money makes you white”.
It is all related to status.
In the middle age, peasants spent most of their time laboring in the fields, so they were tanned. The higher classes, didn’t have to work, so they were pale. So, paleness was desirable (the sory of Snow White comes to memory).
Now, people work mostly in offices, far from sunlight. Only very few people are fortunate enough to go to the beach in workdays, even in Rio, so tanning is beutifull.
I suppose that in countries, were the majority of the population is naturally tanned, rich people can spend their money in treatments to look paler.
In Panama, a large proportion of the population is a bi- or triracial mix (European/Indian/African). I have never heard of paler skinned people making any special effort to get tan, and in fact they will most often try to stay out of direct sun.
Paler skin is a mark of social class here. The upper class is disproportionately made up of people with a larger percentage of European ancestry, who are colloquially known as rabiblancos (“white-tails,” or more loosely “white butts.”) The poorer classes consist more of people with of more Indian appearance (“cholos”) or of African descent (“morenos”).
This is a off-topic, but somewhat interesting to me.
Is that an official site? Because the site is currently offline with a 509 message, i.e. bandwidth limit exceeded. I know they are a rather poor country, but I still have never encountered that sort of thing from an official site.
Same for me. And since we’re in GQ, there’s no way we’re going to accept ** Treis** statement at face value without a proper cite linking to attractive Nicaraguans in bikini.
In Peru, tanning is an interesting thing. Although the “good” skin colour is still white (although this is thankfully changing), the white-but-tanned look is even “more” preferred.
It speaks of time to go to the beach.
In Mexico, the dark-skinned, more-heavily indigenous folk are generally of the lower class, and don’t go to resorts. So when you find Mexicans at the fancy resorts, they’re typically light-skinned folks that like to tan.
When the less affluent (typically darker-skinned) do go to the beach, it’s often a family affair. Hell, they take huge stock pots full of beans to the beach, bring or rent shade, and stay under the shade.
Those are generalities, of course. My Mexican wife is dark-skinned but from an affluent family that wasn’t always affluent. She tries to avoid the sun, but gets pissed off when the waiter won’t come and serve her.
Somewhat related essay in Salon by a woman who suffered serious burns from suntanning in Ecuador – includes some discussion of Ecuadorian views on skin colour: I wanted a tan, but I wound up in a hospital
For me, it is very sad when I see foreign tourists tanning at our beaches. With the ozone layer almost gone in these latitudes, tanning is simply suicide.
Raise your hand if you read the thread title, and wondered to yourself why Latinos would have any different views on leather-making than the rest of the world.