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CHOLITA WRESTLERS

Before being discovered by television, the Aymara female wrestlers took part in real and brutal fights in a ring in El Alto, La Paz. They were paid between 25 and 50 dollars for a show.

Orange peel, chicken bones, and plastic bottles are hurled at Ana 'La Vengadora' -the Avenger- from the stands. She insults the audience, without taking her eyes off her opponent Carmen Rosa. She has to humiliate her however she can. Carmen Rosa -aka 'La Cholita'- waits for her in the ring, wearing her traditional shawl, pollera (petticoats) and manoletinas (flat-soled shoes), an indigenous Aymara woman's Sunday’s Best. She is not going to let `La Vengadora´, in her gringo lycra tights, destroy what she represents in the ring- indigenous pride...

Published in Interviu