Figure 1.--

My family emigrated to Bolivia from Germany in the 1940s. I lived in La Paz, Bolivia in the 1940's and early 1950's. I made short visits to Cochabamba, Oruro, Potosi, and Santa Cruz, but stayed most of the time in La Paz, especially during my school years. This is what I remember,

Germany

I was very young, so my memories of Germany are a little hazy. From old photographs and some blurred memories, I remember wearing the knee-length shorts fashionable at that time. They were a bit trimmer than today's baggy shorts, but my wife, who is Japanese, asked me "are you wearing a skirt?" when she looked at a photo of me. She was obviously used to the shorter shorts worn in Japan. I know I wore knee socks and leather shoes on most occasions, as well as a cap (with visor) for going out, or a "Teufelsmuetze" (or "devil's cap") which was woolen knit covering the head and ears. It came to a point on the forehead between the eyes, therefore the name, I guess. Sometimes I wore a jacket in the Tyrolean style with buttons made from deer antlers. Sport shirt for everyday wear and dress shirt with tie for formal occasions.

Bolivia

Bolivia is a land-locked country in South America. It is best noted for the soring mountains and high elevation of the altiplano where much of the population lives. While the land area is substatial, the population is only about 5.5 million, just slightly above neighboring Paraguay and Uruguay, each with about 3 million people. The population in Bolivia is a mixture of indiginous Indians and a mixture of Spaniards and indians which are mestizos in Spanish. Bolivia has one of the largest populations with Indian ancestry in South America, especially when measured as a proportion of the population. This means that the skin colour of the population also varies between dark brown and white.

Bolivian Boys

The native dress for boys was normally long trousers made of some coarse wool, usually a greyish or yellowish white, with a white shirt and sandals without socks. In the colder weather they wear ponchos of the same material. The "homburg" style hats are worn by girls and women, whereas the boys are either bare-headed or wear the caps with the long ear flaps. This is mostly in the rural areas.

City Clothes

In the city, boys wear long trousers from an early age, but also shorts. There didn't seem to be any particular rules and older boys, up to around 12 or 13, could be seen wearing minimal-length shorts, especially with a dress-up suit - mostly dark blue or black, with white shirt and dark tie. I have noticed that the boys with about even mixture of Indian and Spanish (those with a medium-brown complexion) favoured the very short shorts, while those with the whiter skin wore them slightly longer or longs. [HBC speculates that this was because the families with greter degrees of Indian blood were more interested in seeking middle class/European status.]

My Experiences

When I started school after just having arrived from England, my parents dressed me in dark blue knickerbockers, the type that flare just above the knee and fasten just below. These are worn with kneesocks and leather shoes. I was quite mortified when I arrived at school and saw all the other boys wearing shorts of varying lengths or long trousers. I was also made to wear a cap, something Bolivian boys never do. However, the cap I could easily take off and hide in my school bag before arriving. Bolivian boys, when wearing shorts, never had knee socks; they only wore ankle socks, mostly black or white. I wore both styles depending on what my mother had ready for me. I preferred the ankles socks since my friends wore them at all times.

Climate

The city of La Paz, even though close to the Equator, is about 12,000 feet high and therefore the weather is usually quite cool. It never gets very hot and rarely below freezing. Therefore boys who wore short shorts wore them year round.

Gym Clothes

Just a word about gym wear. My parents, having just arrived from Europe, bought me gym pants that were cut wide and down to the knee in length. Of course I compared this with what the Bolivian boys wore and noticed that most of them had on very tight and brief cotton shorts, in white, dark blue or black. I tried to find a store where I could buy a similar pair, but only found them in the outdoor markets outside the city. Apparently this type of gym shorts (worn as soccer shorts) were mostly bought by the less affluent.

School Smocks

As to school smocks, I remember seeing them in the 1940s only for kindergarten and perhaps the first two or three grades in private schools. Even the Catholic private school, which had a uniform similar to the British, with dark blue blazer and light grey shorts, had the younger children wear white smocks. I started school there in the third grade but never wore a smock. At public schools, which were attended mostly by Indian children, smocks were worn throughout "Primaria" or up to about 12 years of age. Apparnetly since I left Bolivia, school smocks have become more commonly worn.

Play Clothes

During the warm weather, we used to play wearing our gym shorts and singlet, ankle socks and sandals. I don't recall that sneakers were worn except during gym, for which we had what was called "tennis shoes" made of white cloth with a thin rubber sole.

Boys' Attitudes

I remember that boys didn't pay too much attention to what kind of shorts you wore, longish or impossibly brief, but they had never seen knickerbockers before. I was fortunate that I could persuade my parents to give me shorts instead.

My Friends

My friends were usually of the mid-brown mixture. [HBC note: This meant middle class boys of mixed Inian-Spanish blood called "mestizos" rather than the upper class children which tended to be whiter of more Spanish blood.] Why were my friends mostly mestizos? That's a good question and I'm not sure I have a good answer. It is probably a combination of several reasons, based on a young boy's perception. The European immigrants tended to look down on the Bolivians, some called them "savages" and were in general quite disdainful towards those with darker skin. It seemed as if the white "intellectuals" were the only people considered of any value. For my part, I felt an affinity towards the more physical (and supposedly intellectually inferior) mestizos, and was more comfortable in their company (a feeling not always reciprocated). I disliked what I considered the flabby, pallid boys in my class (even if, or because, I was one of them) and admired the stronger, more athletic boys in their short shorts and skimpy attire even when the weather got colder. I had a heavy overcoat for the winter but did my best never to put it on.

Most of my friends tended to wear shorts year round. But even those who wore long pants or longish shorts to school, always wore a dark blue or black suit for special occasions, and these suits were more often than not composed of a short jacket with lapels and very short shorts, white ankle socks and black shoes. It's funny, but somehow I felt jealous of these boys because I was never given those short shorts and I sometimes felt out of place with my knee-length, baggy shorts.

Pre-military Service

I don't recall Bolivia having Boy Scouts. In school, starting when I was 13 years old, there was a sort of "pre-military" service every Saturday morning, organized by the government for all schools. For this we were given uniforms consisting of olive green shorts and dark brown jerseys with a little olive green military cap. We were all very proud to put them on once a week. These Saturday mornings were spent mostly on athletic fields, drilling for future parades, or on field trips carrying real rifles - with the ensuing pains in the shoulder from their considerable weight. With this uniform we wore our own socks and shoes (mine were brown).

Hans

Created: November 3, 2001
Last updated: November 5, 2001