Desplazados Recuerdos: English Version

All along Las Ramblas there are countless shops that sell souvenirs to the unending stream of tourists that pass up and down this seminal street.

It seems that when I am walking, I am constantly bombarded by requests and sales pitches. The innumerable number of signs for restaurants with giant menus (with remarkably similar pictures them) advertising this paella or that sangria. Street artists sell their pantings, the Pakistais sell their noise makers. A cacophonous symphony of cultures intersecting and overlapping one another.

I walked into a souvenir shop on Las Ramblas to see what sorts of products I would find. All the normal things were there: lighters, shot glasses, ash trays, kitschy imitation Gaudi sculptures - essentially nothing different from what can be found in the airport. As well as large Mexican-style hats which, to my knowledge, have never been a part of Spanish culture. Most likely all of these these products were made in China. To these have become souvenirs of Globalization - of the wonders of a very well managed supply chain.

To me, the purpose of a souvenir is the physical representation of the place you've been. It becomes a totem of the place precisely because it is literally made of the place. The metal comes from the local ore, the energy to make it from the local power plant, the paper from local trees. Most importantly it is made, actually constructed, in the place where you buy it. If these things are missing, so is the point of the product and the value of the product.

This hat is not Spanish.