How to Expatriate to Mexico the Right Way

Writing can be such fun. It can take you to places you have never visited. It can provide outlets for emotions, especially confusion, that nothing else can provide. It can also keep driving you to want to learn more and then report what you've found.

I write along some very narrow niches. One niche deals with expatriation issues, particularly expatriation issues regarding Americans (gringos) in Mexico. Why I do what I do and write what I find was not a planned thing, you must understand. My original goal was to write fiction and to produce a science fiction novel while living in Mexico. What I found living in central Mexico changed my writing goals completely.

Writing, though generally a fulfilling experience and an activity in which I thrive, is not an endeavor to be taken lightly. Writing will invite others to take shots at you. Believe me when I tell you, they will do just that. You can get the most encouraging comments and reviews. You can also get very disparaging ones that make you wonder just why you put yourself through it. But, put myself through it I do. and here's why.

In a recent YouGov poll, Britons surveyed revealed that,

"...A majority of the Britons described Americans as uncaring, divided by class, awash in violent crime, vulgar, preoccupied with money, ignorant of the outside world, racially divided, uncultured and in the most overwhelming result (90 percent of respondents) dominated by big business."[1]

Now while I do not understand the "big business" part of that survey and am only slightly aware of how this affects American expat issues in Mexico, the rest of it is most certainly applicable.

If subjective reporting of actually observed events means anything at all, and I am speaking to personally witnessing these events myself as well as relying on other gringos' reporting, then the rest of that quote,

"...described Americans as uncaring, divided by class, awash in violent crime, vulgar, preoccupied with money, ignorant of the outside world, racially divided, uncultured..."

is alive and well in the American gringo expat world in Mexico.

Now, whether or not you agree with the results of the survey, the point is that "our" reputation abroad, including in Mexico, is pretty much reflected in the survey's description.

Though I've written exclusively of expat issues in Mexico, I've recently been made aware that Americans in other parts of the world are pretty much the same. Americans the world over have the identical reputation the survey reflects, the same as I've observed and reported here in Mexico. That's one of the beauties of the Internet. Many will write to share.

A recent comment I got on an article I wrote about San Miguel de Allende, a city in central Mexico with a massive gringo community, is that I am reporting what "has to be isolated incidents." I wish that were true.

When my wife and I first began investigating this American invasion of San Miguel, we did so thinking the very same thing. Surely, we reasoned, these had to be isolated reports that we were being told. Surely, those gringos in Guanajuato who fled San Miguel because of the behavior of the San Miguel Gringos had to be exaggerated. What the expats told us, regarding the strained-to-the-breaking-point relationship between the San Miguel Mexicans and the Americans, just could not be so.

Through personal observation (we spend time in San Miguel, in the background, watching), from other gringos' personal first-hand reports, and emails I've received, these cases that I've reported cannot be coincidence, nor are they isolated.

Isolated incidents? Coincidental events? I do not think so.

What is overwhelmingly compelling are the stories from the Mexicans themselves. Even a modicum of fluency in the language and a desire to talk to such people as the cab drivers, the internet café staff, waiters, even the police, will yield an abundance of shameful anecdotes. It doesn't take a whole lot to get the scoop on the condition of the expat community and its relationship to the locals.

The reputation of San Miguel de Allende's foreign community here in Guanajuato is even more frightening. There are allegations so damaging that I cannot report them here without more proof.

Rest assured. I am still in San Miguel de Allende, in the background, watching and reporting.

An encouraging word I am receiving from some expats is that there seems to be a newer wave of gringos, one in which greater attempts at learning the language and assimilating into the culture are being attempted. To those who are trying, I salute you. What I am saying about the gringo population in San Miguel, as well as in the city in which I live-Guanajuato, is that there are those who try to expatriate properly. They make the attempt to begin the first steps to a proper and positive expatriation experience. It is an attempt that earns a great deal of respect and admiration from the Mexicans.

The nobility, if I am reading the Mexican heart correctly, is in the trying, the attempting, the struggling, and not necessarily in the success or failure of the task.

Then, there are those gringos who do not make the effort. They cannot string enough words in Spanish together to express a cogent thought. No language? Then no assimilation into the culture. Not even an attempt? Then you have absolutely no respect from the host country's inhabitants.

And, my dear American gringo expatriates, this communicates volumes to the local Mexican population.

If you don't believe this, then ask them.

Oh, but wait! If you cannot communicate in the language, you can never know what those you hire to clean your house, cook your meals, and garden your plants are really thinking, now can you?

How to expatriate to Mexico successfully? It is very simple if you've gotten anything from this article at all: LEARN SPANISH.

If you approach the task in the knowledge and spirit that to learn second languages is as natural an endeavor for humans as learning your first language, and adopt as natural method of instruction, you will learn Spanish.

Then, the rest is even easier. Get out from in front of that television and those American channels beamed into your house from space, and walk the streets seeking out your Mexican hosts. First, help them get over the heart attack they will certainly have, and then talk...talk...talk.

Remember two things:

First, what does it mean to successfully expatriate to Mexico and immeasurably improve the relationship between the gringo population and the Mexicans? Learn their language!

Second, don't forget that the Mexicans will see great nobility in your effort despite how well you accomplish the task.

That is how to expatriate to Mexico.

That's how it is supposed to work.

Don't give up!

[1]Common Dreams New Center; Britons Tire of Cruel, Vulgar US: Poll; Published on Monday, July 3, 2006 by Agence France Presse; http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0703-01.htm