Aren't you glad I'm here?

No, really. Hello?

The difference between an expat and a refugee? An immigrant and a tourist. A traveler and a resident. A snowbird and a migrant worker.

Mostly a little paperwork and feeling specialness. Snowbirds in particular have specialness affliction. I’m originally from Florida’s Gulf Coast. Canadians and people daft enough to live in Minnesota have been showing up at the best times, taking the best rentals, clogging traffic and leaving at the first mosquito for decades. Now they’re in Mexico because Florida is overpriced. So now Merida, Puerto Vallarta and San Miguel de Allende are overpriced.

A lot of NOBs (North of the Borders) think that Mexicans are excited to see them move into the neighborhood. So many decades of throwing money around at falsely hospitable resort workers in coastal areas has deluded the reality. I was a hospitality professional for 30 years and trust me, I was mostly delighted to see you in my restaurant and do my job of liberating you from hundreds of dollars in an evening. Do I want you as my neighbor? No, I do not. Especially knowing what an alcoholic you are.

I smugly was never one of those people. I was a traveler not a tourist. My partner was from Ecuador, close enough. And I worked with dozens of Mexican nationals for 9 years or more (who liked me just fine nevermind I was paying them a salary) I spoke pretty good Spanish, I knew the history. I was different. We’re cool right?

It’s one of those times when you think you’re not racist but you start to realize that you’re in the scene because you’re dropping money. Most of us expect better things to happen when we have money. Not super rich politician insider trading money just more money than locals. Super rich people aren’t moving/traveling to pueblo Mexico. Real estate refugees are. Big expat hot spots like Merida have infrastructure and Costco so the NOBs are more comfy. And for $1500/mo I’d definitely want more peanut butter brands in my tienda. I want unscented toilet paper. I want good cuts of meat that aren’t so thin and suspiciously horse like. I would like a bakery with real bread. I would want Mexicany things like Ballet Folklorico and parades and horses and tamale and fruit vendors and embroidered Tree of Life blankets and churros and Oaxacan chocolate. Because you know, I’m living part time in Mexico. I don’t have to see the clandestine graves or the midday shootouts between the military and the cartels. It smells like roasted chiles and rose petals for expats. It smells like fish guts and tar for residents.

I talk to fresh new travelers sometimes who want to know where the “real” Mexico is. I’m not at liberty to say but lots of (most of) Mexico sells Bimbo bread (Wonder that tastes like laundry soap) Taki chips, 45 different types of coca cola products and scented and sweetened and packaged everything. They love tshirts that say Hilfiger and POLO and yoga pants. They’ll likely not be wearing a huipil unless they have a rehearsal in the zocalo after school. You’ll have a bigger selection of salsas and products in your local tienda in the US because Mexicans living there have more money and so there are more things to sell them. Here they shop at Walmart once they take the 3 hour bus ride to get there and they have the same Chinese crap (maybe less) than you have in the US where you said you’d never shop at Walmart. It’s funny how NOBs lose all their politics and grandstanding about a big box store. When they are just sick of going to 5 different shops and finding that this is the plastic bowl store, that is the sponge shop, that place has breads but not between 10-2 and for produce and meat you definitely need a big mercado with noise, flies, open carcasses and if you’re lucky…a local to show you who has the better queso fresco out of the 5 vendors you see. They open at 6am, close early, run out when they run out and are closed on Wednesdays. Or alternating Mondays.

NOBs who have been valued for their ability to buy things, contract for things, demand things and request service for things will likely have to be more patient in Mexico for people to warm up. I’m not saying they won’t like you because you’re American but they won’t like you just because you are that’s FOR sure. And they may NOT like you because of your American-ness. Maybe they used to work in Cancun and hated gringos, maybe their cousin Jose works in the US hanging drywall 12 hours a day and cries about his mean boss. Surely they hear of dire US news on their state owned television networks and believe me, it’s a lot of news about the US for novelty sake, mostly how will this affect my money —news. Weather related tragedy in densely populated immigrant areas where they have family and news about mass shootings which helps prop up the no gun policy (unless you’re a criminal) laws here. Maybe they’re still mad about the land we stole and would like TX, CA, NM and AZ back. But they, by and large, are not impressed by NOBs. We like different things. We are vastly different cultures. Watch a few Mexican variety shows and see if you follow the humor or their novellas. Listen to some maxxed out speaker blasting Narco Corridos on repeat for a few weekends and see if it makes you want to party until 6am. We’re different. It’s okay, but they’re not holding their breath over your arrival.

Our perception of how we’re helping the economy by being here is silly. I’m helping the guy at the tienda and my landlord. Everything else about me is irrelevant. The saving of dogs, the spay and neuter campaigns, the feeding of strays. They really don’t care. It’s a problem sure, the dogs, but it seems to right itself. Starvation, mass sweeps and euthanasias, car hit and run. Have you ever talked to an Australian about Kangaroo? They’re a huge nuisance despite how they’ve been portrayed in Pooh Bear books. They want them “dealt” with and though they haven’t started to “cull” dogs in Mexico by hunting (officially), I could see a point where they could. I have contacts with larger rescue centers in and around Mexico and they spay hundreds to thousands of strays a year and they will admit that although it’s better than before, all you need is a couple of feral females to put that number right back up there in less than a year. They’ve been doing this for 20 years.

If you can’t change the culture, you’ll not change the situation. The landscape may be different or not like that in “your town” where you’re allowed to maintain your specialness (Merida NOBs like to pretend that there isn’t a huge animal control problem and thousands of dogs euthanized each year because they don’t see it and their English only FB groups are shiny).

But here’s what I’ve learned. If you’re going to be a foreigner somewhere I suggest you go where they already do all the things that you like to have in a community. Seems obvious but I see that for my entire life, not just in Mexico, I’ve chosen places that I thought had potential. I’ll make it better! In my narrow vision of what makes life and community interesting, I have meant well, but the hubris of thinking that poor areas or underserved areas care about aesthetics or food or noise ordinances is naive.

Some people go for their kid’s school or because they need a hospital across the road. I’ve been rewarded in the US for sprucing up commercial districts and putting ‘lifestyle’ type businesses in dying residential areas, but that’s just because I’ve helped line the pockets of real estate developers/money launderers. Who wants to live in a townhouse for $850,000 if you can’t push the stroller down to the Cantina Garden and have a $14 margarita? No one. I see that now.

As I age, I know I’m not going to change much around me where I go anymore so I want what I want now. Baskets of flowers, cleaned windows, wood fired pizza, artisan sourdough, the ban on high fructose corn syrup and RoundUp. No commercial traffic, no party time tourism. Affordable rents on small clean studios with tall windows. Fresh food. Parks with benches. Well maintained roads, pedestrian friendly towns with friendly pedestrians.

I need to live where litter is either not dropped where it’s consumed or the city is solvent enough to pay someone to pick it up if you do. Go where you like the music. The view. The smells. The faces of the citizens. Where exercise and fresh air picnics outdoors are commonplace. There are bookstores. Cafes. Flower shops. Where you won’t get murdered if you go out after dusk. Where there is more commerce than moving drugs up and down the highway. Where you can afford to open a business. Where there are still antiques and art and where clothing is not just made for teenagers or street walkers. Where you’ll be valued and maybe just maybe, invited over for lunch one day because they like your sense of humor. Don’t try to change where you go. Like trying to change a person, it rarely works.