Naming and the Renewal of Goods: El Dompe, Las Segundas and Los Yonkes on the U.S.-Mexican BorderSarah Hill Western Michigan University
Departments of Anthropology
and Environmental Studies Abstract: This essay takes as its point of departure the necessity of putting wastes at the center of inquiry into consumer cultures, material meanings and global market production in the late 20th century. Through a discussion of imported language on the U.S.-Mexico border, this essay explores the route traveled by American discards from El Paso, Texas, to renewal as desired consumer goods in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. At its broadest, this essay examines how the international border itself contributed in the 3rd quarter of the 20th century to determining an item’s status as a waste or resource. In turn, the essay also considers the various ways in which Mexican consumers in Ciudad Juárez positioned themselves through first and second-hand U.S.-made goods against both Americans in El Paso and Mexicans from the (imagined) cosmopolitan center of the country. The essay provides a snapshot of Juárez consumer culture on the eve of the city’s emergence as a major supplier to U.S. retail markets of finished goods (i.e., the maquiladora program). The essay shows how the city, through its market production and appropriation of U.S. goods in primary and secondary circulation, created a unique material culture marked by peculiarly Juarense trading establishments such as “el dompe” (the city dump), segundas (second-hand markets), and “yonkes” (junk yards).
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