What Is It About Lotería That We All Love?

Recently I asked William “Memo” Nericcio, Director of the Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences program at San Diego State University and a Professor in English and Comparative Literature there the same question.

Look, I said, I have friends who are not of Mexican heritage, and they love lotería, too. I see corporation adapt the lotería images, as well as non-profits and groups all over the country do the same. Why, if lotería started out a long time ago as a hobby of the upper crust in Mexico, do my Salvi and white friends still love the imagery?

“What you’re looking at with lotería and what you’re looking at with lucha libre is popular entertainment,” Nericcio told News Taco. “What did regular folks do before there was the Internet? Everybody played lotería.” Which is to say, even though we find ourselves in an increasingly technological and digital world, it is exactly the old-ness of lotería that draws us in.

Plus, Nericcio told News Taco, the timing is just right. In an era of social media and new technology, lotería fodders this need for nostalgia of a more authentic form of popular culture. “It’s what reconnects you to the past in a way that is vibrant. The colors have to do with it, as well as a printed, graphic culture. It’s an embrace of ephemera as disposable culture becomes more marketable,” he told us.

Although lotería has been adapted for a variety of purposes — most recently we wrote about a project that critiqued Latino cultural notions of sexuality using lotería imagery — it’s precisely because lotería represents a very specific culture that we love it.

“This is the flip side of stereotypes that put us at ease in a world gone mad,” Nericcio told News Taco. “These echoes of the past nourish us, remind us of where we come from.”

So what do you think about lotería?

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD