“And now the people, who rise in struggle with the voice of a giant, shouting: forward! The united people will never be defeated,” was the Chilean song, which became an anthem of popular struggles, that began to play at dawn from the speakers of Villa Hidalgo Yalálag to awaken the inhabitants of this Zapotec community, nestled in the green mountains of northern Oaxaca.
Thus dawned the day when corporate representatives of Adidas, one of the world’s titans of athletic footwear, would travel to the indigenous village—with several centuries of history—to offer a public apology to the entire community of artisans aggrieved by the plagiarism committed by American designer Willy Chavarría, who sold the design of traditional Yalaltecan huaraches for the Oaxaca Slip On model as his own.
It was like a reminder that in Villa Hidalgo Yalálag, the people are the boss. Here, everything is decided in the heat of community meetings.
The controversy grew rapidly after the scam was discovered. Cultural misappropriation, they call it. The complaint reached President Claudia Sheinbaum, who demanded an apology. Perhaps under the weight of the reproach, the company assumed the cost.
