Are you
one who wants to move to Mexico? Maybe you want to retire, work, or
are just interested in hanging out for a while. If you are, you need to
listen to this and do so with the utmost attention.
What you will
find in Mexico is that foreigners, especially Americans, move to one of
two areas. Traditionally, they’ ve ended up in long-established
Gringo
Enclaves in cities where the locals have learned to adapt in order
to serve the Americans and where the locals speak English. Cities that
come to mind are Puerto Vallarta and San Miguel de Allende. There are many
more but these seem to be the most popular.
In these cities,
the locals speak English on a massive scale. Moving to these cities is
not much different than moving to another state in America with a large
Hispanic population.
These cities,
mind you, largely depend on the presence of the Americans for their bread
and butter. The local economy rises or falls based on how the American
expats and tourists spend money.
The second
thing that gringos do is move to areas of Mexico that do not depend
on the presence of Americans for their livelihood.Gringos
are just now becoming attracted to these areas for one reason - the cheap
cost of living. Housing, medicine, doctors office visits, food, entertainment,
and other cost-of-living items are still very reasonable. These gringo
wannebees are being priced out of the market in Puerto Vallarta and San
Miguel de Allende because the established gringo presence there
has driven prices to the level where middle-class retirees can no longer
afford to live there. This is driving the potential expats to areas where
everything is as it was in San Miguel, for example, twenty years ago.
The problem
that most gringos are not considering is that these cities and towns
have not depended on the American dollar for their existence, their livelihood,
and are not as gringo friendly as towns such as San Miguel de Allende.
Towns like
Dolores Hidalgo, Zacatecas, Patzcuaro, and others are just now beginning
to receive gringos into their midst. The locals do not know what
to do with this new phenomenon.
The Gringos,
the new phenomenon, are coming into these towns and sizing them up as potential
places to live.
Unfortunately, many of these new arrivals do not speak Spanish.
Nor do they
have a clue as to how to integrate into the local community and end up,
in the long run, creating Gringoenclaves.
This is so
spooky. They essentially make an American town within a Mexican town. It
is like two different realities or dimensions existing at the same time
in one place. It is positively schizophrenic!
How is the
gringo
going to be perceived and received in a town whose economic livelihood
is not, nor ever has been, dependent on the Americans? And what is going
to happen when the monolingual gringos breeze into town expecting
the locals to receive them in the same manner they would have been received
in towns that have grown to depend on the expat community for their very
existence?
A perfect
example is a comparison between San Miguel de Allende and the city of Guanajuato.
It is night and day, black and white, when you look at how the local Mexicans
perceive the Americans. In one town, you have the locals who know on which
side of their bread gets the most butter and in the other you have Mexicans
who.
1) Are happy
you are here.
2) Couldn't
care less whether you are here or not - indifference.
3) Would really
prefer you don’t come to town at all.
Gringos,
in my view, generally do not get that at all! I believe
that’s because all of the expat guidebooks present a gushing, sugar and
spice and everything nice picture about living in Mexico.
Presenting
negatives isn’t commercially viable. Presenting the lovely, the fluffy,
the sweet, the nirvana is what sells.
The poor
potential expat is left to discover on his or her own the bugaboos of living
in a place that might or might not be gringo friendly at all.
An example
of this the city of Guanajuato, the capital city of the state of Guanajuato.
In this city, if you were to walk up to a meat, vegetable, canned goods
counter where there was an employee behind it ready to take your order,
you will most likely get a big surprise. I am not talking about a supermarket
but the little places where Mexicans traditionally go to get their groceries.
There is the butcher for your meat, the frutería for your fruit
and vegetables, a separate place to get your baked goods - this is traditional
shopping in Guanajuato.
At these counters,
women will shove you (actually lay hands on you) out of the way to shout
their order over you. At the very least, they stand in the back and simply
screech like banshees, expecting to be waited on first. I’ ve had them
grab me by my arm and move me out of the way.
This is how
it is. It isn’t something we would do in the States for fear of a sound
beating being doled out for our rudeness. But, in this country, at least
in Guanajuato, they do it routinely!
Here the
real kickers:
The gringos
who live in the enclaves, the colonies, the American sectors, do not see
this behavior at all.
They shop at supermarkets. Rather than shop according to the Mexican tradition,
they actually drive out of town to get to a Sam’s, Wal-Mart, or an HEB,
where they get their meat from a refrigerated bin and pick their vegetables
from a shelf. They do not frequent the traditional places to get these
items.
And yet, they
react with vitriol and umbrage if one suggests this behavior goes on in
Guanajuato. These gringos are so sheltered they simply haven’t a
clue of what goes on in the other worlds that surrounds their little American
sectors. If you try discussing this in any sort of discourse, they will
call you a liar, an exaggerator, xenophobe, hater of Mexicans. Those are
the nice things I’ ve been called in emails and to my face.
If expatriation
is learning the language and assimilating into the culture you’ ve chosen
in which to live, then what doesn’t cultural assimilation actually mean?
If I may
suggest this:
Expatriation
is the process by which an intense integration occurs whereby the individual
of another culture is eventually absorbed into the new culture. This includes
absorption into the new cultures, language, celebration of holidays, observation
of local events, politics, if allowed by law, in the new country. Also,
it would include the development of intense interpersonal relationships
with neighbors in the new country.
Going about
creating little Americas, American enclaves, or American sectors is not
expatriation. These people are not Expatriates but Fakepatriates.
Which do
you want to be? Do you want to be an Expat or a Fakepat?
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