Mexico As A Concept And Not A Reality Part 3 By Douglas Bower At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Based on my going-on five years of expat experience in the city of Guanajuato, Mexico's Heartland, I do not think the current expat guides such as Howell, Merwin, and Luboff, apply here. It is so stark in fact, that the difference between Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende is almost like comparing apples to oranges. Here are two cities, two Colonial Mexican Heartland towns, so close, and so different. What's changed it? The Gringo presence and the Mexican's subsequent adaptation (subjugation?) to the Gringo presence.

Is this a bad thing? Is it bad that the Americans have swept into towns such as San Miguel de Allende and with their money effectively changed it from uniquely Mexican to something all together different? My view is that it is a bad thing. My traditional understanding of expatriation, one about which I feel passionately, prevents me from seeing the changes in San Miguel as something good. It prevents me from seeing the Gringos in San Miguel as expatriates. What that city has become is a playground for the rich Gringo. The Mexicans in the town live to serve the Gringos. That is something with which I take great exception. However, for most Americans, living in Mexico would be impossible without a town like San Miguel whose entire infrastructure has been redesigned and functions to serve the American who wants to live there. I cannot argue with the fact that what San Miguel now is, is what it is, and there's no going back to what it was. The ultimate sadness is that the town's Mexicans I am not sure ever had a choice in the matter.

Mexico as a Concept

So, what is the Mexico as a Concept that draws Americans to towns like San Miguel de Allende or any Prime Living Location in Mexico? What is the Concept of Mexico about which the popular expat guides, online websites, newsletters, seminars, speak? What Concept or Image of Mexico is attracting the American who wants to leave the U.S. to live here?

Primarily, Americans think they can come and live here because Mexico and her people are just like us. I mentioned this in our first book, The Plain Truth about Living in Mexico. I tried using the phrase, "Don't forget, Mexico is not America." throughout the book to try get across the point that is very much lost on Americans: "Mexico is not America." Americans typically do not hold any depth of cultural awareness and too often think that all that is necessary to live with Mexicans is throw some money or technology at them under the guise of "Now, we gringos are here to help these poor third-world Mexicans" charities and soon the Mexican will jump through America hoops and be "just like us." I've often wondered if Americans would be so willing to move here if they knew in advance that there is not someone "just like me" under that Mexican's mestizo skin.

Do not think me glib or disrespectful here. This American woman in Guanajuato was once telling me how the Gringo Charity to which she belonged was here so that they might help these "little brown people." At first I thought I had misheard her until I asked my wife in private who had also heard this hideous remark.

I remain convinced that Americans think they can come to Mexico to live because Mexicans are just like Americans, only in a different wrapper. That seems to be the extent of America's cultural awareness. I cannot begin to count how many times I have heard the following two statements from the mouths of American expats:

1. I know they understand what I am talking about and are pretending they don't.

2. If they are going to work for me, they are just going to have to adapt to me and assimilate my ways, including speaking English.

I really wonder if Americans would come here if they really knew what lies deeply layered underneath the surface of the Mexican mind?

Americans, and especially Texans, think that because they've eaten tex-mex, attended some cross-border festivals, have driven across the border to go shopping, worked with a few Mexicans in a construction project, screamed at a few of those projects' Mexican workers, had a few Dos XX beers while camping in Reynosa, can say "Yo quiero Taco Bell," that they've pretty much mastered Mexican culture and living in Mexico will be a cinch. Americans (and don't forget those Texans) delude themselves into thinking they know Mexicans. They are more willing to admit that there are vast language and cultural differences between themselves and the Chinese than they do with Mexicans.

They are convinced they are cultural experts when it comes to Mexicans and therefore willingly pack it up and move here based on this delusional Concept about Mexico: Mexicans are just like us; Mexico is just like America. They can handle it, they reason, because after all, they are just Mexicans and are just like us.

NEXT: Mexico As a Concept and Not As a Reality part 4

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