By Maria Fernanda Escallón, Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology

“On any day I can meet royalty, the most powerful presidents of the world, but I can’t have proper health insurance,” fumed Maria, a fruit vendor from San Basilio de Palenque now working in Cartagena’s historic city center. This Palenquera, as these vendors are known in Colombia, was angry, frustrated, fed up. For all the years she had been away from her family, working long hours in an exclusive touristic area, she expected more support from the government. “Palenque’s culture was declared by UNESCO as Intangible Heritage of Humanity more than ten years ago. We are heritage, I am heritage, and yet they barely let us work,” she complained, and continued, “What heritage are they protecting?” Maria was not alone in her frustration; many Palenqueras explained to me how local and national governments profited from their image, while they struggled to make a living.  

According to these women, Palenqueras have been selling fruit and traditional sweets in Cartagena for well over a century. The first women from Palenque who took on fruit selling as their primary occupation catered mostly to families living in the city’s center who bought fresh fruit from them daily. Over time, as el centro histórico has become a touristic area with boutique hotels and shops, Palenqueras have shifted to selling fruit to tourists. Today, some Palenqueras walk the streets with heavy poncheras—or big bowls—filled with tropical fruit on their heads, while others set up on street corners with small make-shift stands. As more and more tourists travel to Cartagena—over two million visitors per year—besides selling fruit, many Palenqueras are sought after by travelers for photographs and occasionally receive a small tip in return.  

For decades, and particularly after Palenque’s UNESCO declaration in 2005, Palenqueras have become one of the most marketable characters of Colombia’s tourism industry. Local and national governments use images of them to promote travel to Colombia and Cartagena, wealthy elites hire them as entertainers for private events, and politicians pose with them during election campaigns. Cartagena’s restaurants and hotels are filled with portraits, magnets, sculptures, and postcards depicting Palenqueras. Yet, despite being a commodified symbol, the actual wellbeing of Palenqueras is systematically ignored. These women have no rights over the use of their images, never mind the profits from them. Police officers frequently harass Palenqueras working at fruit stands, noting it is an unauthorized use of public space. While the city keeps granting exclusive use of plazas and roads to wealthy private restaurants and entrepreneurs, Palenqueras are not allowed to sell on public property. “I thought we were safe, being heritage and all,” a Palenquera lamented, “but I guess they just use us and dispose of us like old rags.” 

In 2018 a faculty grant from CSWS allowed me to travel to Cartagena to interview Palenqueras and understand the disconnect that exists between their public image and their lived experience. I wanted to trace how Palenqueras’ characterization as Afro-descendant living heritage became both an opportunity for and an obstacle to their socio-economic mobility. I found that, as the image of the Palenqueras is being consolidated as an icon of Colombia’s tourism industry and ethno-racial diversity, it also entrenches stereotypes and racist ideas about Afro-descendant women. Additionally, as their popularity expands, Palenqueras’ appearance and demeanor are increasingly policed regarding their behavior, dress code, and services. Tighter control over their work and use of public space has pitted Palenqueras not just against the local government but also against each other, in a fight to protect their work, heritage, and livelihoods. 

Today, the image of the Palenquera appears to be aimed at pleasing tourists and entertaining white elites, and it ignores the reality of Black women’s lives in Colombia, where they are subject to institutional racism and sexism, and are disproportionally affected by underemployment. Ironically, then, the more visible that Palenqueras become, the more invisible are their struggles. Put simply, the public’s fascination with the image of the Palenquera—evoking an exotic, diverse, and tourist-friendly Caribbean paradise—ends up reinforcing the racial and gender systematic inequalities currently at work in Colombia.  

This research is part of my broader work and forthcoming book, Excluded: Black Cultural Heritage and the Politics of Diversity in Colombia, in which I examine how declarations of Afro-descendant cultural heritage have not benefited Blacks equally, instead creating new sources of inequality and hierarchy at a local level. Broader issues of poverty, access to public services, and gender inequality have been obscured by such heritage declarations, which tend to focus on celebrating culture and ethnic diversity. Departing from previous scholarship focused on the successes of Black social movements in pushing forward legislation for Afro-Colombians, my book examines how the quest to establish equality through cultural heritage declarations entrenches stereotypical, racialized, and gendered roles for women. Importantly, this trend is not unique to Colombia but replicated across Latin America in other heritage sites where Black bodies are dissociated from their socio-economic context and managed as touristic products, the images of which are consumed away from contact with their impoverished realities. 

After I left Cartagena in August 2018, police officers continued to harass Palenqueras, preventing them from setting up fruit stands and monitoring their interactions with tourists. Tensions mounted between long-established Palenqueras and recent migrants from Venezuela who, invoking their Palenquero ancestry, hoped to make a living also as fruit vendors. As Venezuela’s situation continued to deteriorate, and the number of fruit vendors multiplied, increased surveillance intensified the fear and anxiety of Palenqueras, who grew angrier and angrier with the local government. In March 2019, a police officer confiscated an elderly Palenquera’s fruit stand, and city-wide protest erupted in support of Palenqueras and other informal street vendors. In the main square, the women demanded to hear from Cartagena’s mayor and cease police attacks against them. Holding “we are heritage” posters and claiming their right to work, they chanted, “We are Palenqueras, not criminals!”  

As I return to Cartagena again during summer 2019 and resume my work with Palenqueras, I continue to witness their struggle to survive in a tourist-oriented city, where living heritage has no place in the real world. 

Note: All Palenqueras’ names have been changed to protect their identity. 

—Maria Fernanda Escallón, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, earned her PhD from Stanford University. She is a socio-cultural anthropologist and archaeologist interested in cultural heritage, race, diversity politics, ethnicity, and inequality in Latin America.  Her work examines the consequences of cultural heritage declarations and draws attention to the political and economic marginalization of minority groups that occurs as a result of recognition.