MEXICO CITY -- A
But with most people in the area supporting Wal-Mart, the group is waging a lonely battle for what it calls its defense of Mexico's landscape and culture.
The dispute in Teotihuacan -- a town built next to the ruins of the 2,000-year-old metropolis -- illustrates how the allure of low prices and US lifestyles often wins out in Mexico, leaving traditionalists struggling to draw a line in rapidly shifting cultural sands.
"We'd rather not have Mickey Mouse on top of the Pyramid of the Moon," said Emmanuel D'Herrera, a business owner in Teotihuacan, 30 miles north of Mexico City.
He said a tall sign will loom near the huge twin pyramids that draw hundreds of thousands of tourists annually, although a government-appointed archeologist disputes that.
While the store is visible from atop the pyramid, so are many other modern businesses and houses.
Underlining his group's lack of support, D'Herrera said probably 70 percent of the town's mostly poor residents support the new store because it will offer lower prices than the area's small shops.
"The housewives want to go shopping with credit cards . . .and the teenagers want to go skateboarding in the parking lot, like in the United States," he said.
The archeologist, Veronica Ortega, said the opponents represent shopkeepers afraid of losing business to Wal-Mart.
The opponents do not deny that, but argue that small stores and markets should be preserved, even if they offer little cultural purity.
"There is a street market at Otumba, a mile or so away, that will be destroyed by Wal-Mart," said D'Herrera. "The market is full of plastic stuff and Chinese goods, but it still should be preserved."
While Wal-Mart started work without the presence of the government-mandated archeologist and refuses to allow a reporter to visit the site, it said it has "promoted and respected Mexican culture and traditions."
The store's walls and roof struts are already up, and Wal-Mart executives said they have taken steps to make the store inconspicuous.
"A number of conditions have been set to make the store blend in," said Ortega, who monitors the site. "It will be lower than a regular store -- below the tree line. It will have more subdued colors, and a stone facade."
The low-to-the-ground sign won't even say Wal-Mart. The US company, now Mexico's biggest retailer after buying up numerous Mexican store chains in recent years, is putting in one of its Bodega Aurrera outlets, which offer cheaper merchandise than a Wal-Mart-branded store.