I think it is important to point out the origins of the Mexican town in which I purchased these earrings in order to fully comprehend the importance of silver and by proxy the existence of these earrings in the first place.

Taxco is located in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. It’s about an hour and a half away from where my grandparents live in Cuernavaca, Morelos. Hernan Cortes’ palace in located in Cuernavaca, and he had a strong hand in founding the existing town of Taxco as it is recognized today. So colonialism is an ugly but integral part of the existence of these earrings.

Taxco was not always a silver mining town. In fact, the name Taxco comes from the indigenous language of Nahuatl meaning “place of the ballgame”. Indigenous sport was infinitely more important to the culture than was the abundance of silver located in the land, which the indigenous population saw no real use for. It was Cortes who came in and demanded that the indigenous population begin to mine the silver and ready it for export back to Spain.

Silver mining and exporting became much less integral to the town of Taxco during the Mexican Revolution in 1910, during which the town was actually sparsely populated. It was an American by the name of William Spratling who brought the history of silver mining in Taxco back to life in the 1920s. He opened up many silver design workshops and exported much of the silver jewelry that came out of it back to the U.S. Since then, Taxco has had a boom in population and most of the commerce within the town in due to tourism.

I was one of these tourists when I bought the earrings. I was excited, never having ventured to Guerrero before, eager to get out of the small bubble in Cuernavaca that my family encouraged me to stay in while visiting them. But this leads me to believe that since these earrings were brand new, made by the man I bought them from in a small but deliberately charming hole-in-the-wall shop in el centro (downtown) of Taxco, that the purpose of them was not to convey some cultural significance or align myself with my Mexican heritage. The town was originally populated by indigenous people who were either worked to death or contracted diseased by European conquistadors. My Mexican family does not see themselves as having indigenous roots at all (although they are probably undeniably there if one goes back far enough in our family tree). Therefore I conclude that the main purpose of these earrings is to make money for the existing tourism sect in Taxco, as well as to put food on the table for the man who made the earrings and sold them to me for 80 pesos. Their secondary purpose seems to be adorning my body, for that seems so much less important in the long run. The act of me buying the object is much more consequential than their presence in my life after that transaction.