Mexican social media star Yeri Mua recently went viral for a video where she insults a huipil, a traditional garment worn by Indigenous women from central Mexico to Central America. The video garnered divided reactions on social media and condemnation from activist Luz Valdez.
In Mua’s original live on TikTok, she is seen wearing a colorful huipil. As she turns to show it off for the camera, in Spanish she compares the frankly stunning garment to “the mop at my grandma’s Estela’s house” and the “tablecloth at my grandma Estela’s house.” Later, the influencer tries to compliment the garment, saying she looks very pretty and that she’d underestimated “grandma Estela’s jerga outfit.”
Valdez, whose entire social media presence is about promoting and advocating her culture, responded to Mua’s video with facts, and some unnecessary jabs. “That garment that Yeri Mua calls ‘jerga’ and ‘grandma’s tablecloth’ is a huipil a musgo estilizado, sown in a back strap loom in Xochistlahuaca, Guerrero,” Valdez said in Spanish. “It takes many hours of work and above all the identity and history of a group of people.”
Valdez also added unnecessary jabs at Mua, saying in Spanish, “No matter what you wear, you’ll look bad, and that has nothing to do with the garment.”
Mua later addressed the controversy on another live, where she claimed her comments were misunderstood and said she “hopes she didn’t offend anyone.” That video sees her at an artisanal shop buying a present for her grandma Estela, who Mua claims loves these kinds of garments.
Though some of Mua’s fans defended her in the face of controversy, saying that her comments were just “Yeri Mua’s typical sense of humor,” most people called her out for her ignorance, saying that her comments were just “more proof that people who don’t belong to Indigenous communities have no respect for the work of artisans.”
And they said that her comments were not just “proof of her ignorance, but a total lack of respect.”