Most of the books on the market dealing with the issue of expatriating to Mexico are fluff. I didn’t realize this until my wife and I got firmly settled into a daily routine here in Guanajuato that there was something those expat books on the market weren’t telling us. In fact, whether you read the books on “How to move to Mexico and live like the Queen of Sheba” or the vast amounts of online articles and websites, they all will pretty much be full of cotton candy and lots of sugar coating. We came to central Mexico expecting Nirvana. We thought we had arrived in Camelot. If this wasn’t a utopia, it surely had to be the closest thing to it compared to the United States. After all, Mexicans, we observed, seemed happy. They walk around laughing and smiling and seem like they enjoy life and are glad you came along to make their existences just a little bit better. We got a reality check. We got it fast and hard. The first thing we noticed was that Mexicans, and maybe it is something peculiar to central Mexico, do things in public that would in America get them shot, stabbed, or taken outside into an alley for a sound beating. If you were to move here, you would soon see how that at a store counter, whether it is your turn or not, men and women will elbow you out of the way and shout their orders to the employee behind the counter over you. It is like no one has ever explained to them the concept of taking turns in a line. I mean this most sincerely and seeing this happen daily never ceases to disgust me. The other day, my wife was standing in line for some tamales. My wife had given the order, paid the man, and the man was serving up our food on little paper plates. A woman simply elbowed my wife in the ribs knocking her away from the counter and began shouting her order at the server. This is not an isolated thing. It happens constantly. There you are, it is your turn, and someone, usually another woman, will act like you aren’t even there or are a piece of trash to be kicked out of the way. I’ve been yanked off buses so some Mexican can cut in front of me. I’ve been pushed, knocked off the sidewalk, not once but twice, and into the path of an oncoming bus that hit me both times. I wasn’t seriously hurt since I am writing this and not pushing up daisies. In every aspect of life in Guanajuato that requires lining up or queuing, the “good” people of Guanajuato are totally committed to disordered chaos! You should try walking down or up stairs. They come up in a massive, throbbing blob of humanity and seem not to know that there can be two lines on a stairwell: one descending and one ascending line of people. They honestly don’t seem to understand this. They go up or down the stairs in one gigantic throng with no sense of anyone else around them. And if you are descending the stairs when the Mexican mob is ascending they either all stop and stare at you or simply knock you down, out of the way, or carry you back up the stairs requiring you to start over. I was once in a drug store at the cashier when a young man grabbed my right arm and shoved me out of the way. Can you imagine the consequence of this event occurring in the United States? Knives and guns would soon come out and that would be all she wrote. I cannot explain this to you. We are fluent enough in Spanish to ask and have been told that these are “malcriados”—ill raised. But, here’s the thing: Those who tell us this are from other parts of Mexico where apparently they aren’t so “malcriados.” I do not know if this is true or not. I am writing this article because of an event that happened just this afternoon. My wife and I were trying to eat in what we would call in the States a deli. My poor wife stood in line waiting while the young woman served all the Mexicans first before waiting on my wife who was clearly there before all the Mexicans were. This has happened before to us. There is a restaurant here called “Truco 7” where the waiters will wait on all the Mexicans before bothering with the gringo slime—which is how you are made to feel. We won’t go there anymore because of this and I use my writing venue to discourage Americans and Canadians from eating there. This also happened to my friend, a retired District Attorney, who was told he and his date would have to eat in the kitchen because the gringos were not allowed to eat with the Mexicans. He was told this to his face. The owner didn’t like Americans and this is how they get treated—to the kitchen with you, gringo man. This was at a different establishment that is now defunct. I’ve written about this before and am moved to cover the topic again because frankly I expected more of the Mexican people. Some Mexicans tell me this is specific to Guanajuato and the surrounding areas. I just do not know. Some will say things like, “Well this doesn’t happen all the time.” Just what does that mean: “All the time?” How many times is too much? Is one act of anti-American sentiment acceptable whereas two acts aren’t? Are we talking about a matter of proportionality? Should we come up with some sort of scale that we use to determine how many acts of discrimination constitutes too much? You hit ten events and then you get to feel a little pissed but not before then? I am appalled at any act of discrimination, any time, any amount, and in any fashion. Percentages do not count when it comes to this sort of thing, don’t you think? So far, I’ve been: · Pushed off the sidewalk twice and in the path of a bus that hit me both times. · Yanked off of the first step of a bus twice. · Pushed out of the way in a drug store once. · I’ve been passed up by cabs and buses so many times I cannot count. They will stop if a Mexican is with me but rarely when I am alone. · I’ve been passed up in restaurants while the waiter helped Mexican clients who came into the place long after I did. And, really this happens so often that I tend to lose track of how many events. I’m thinking about collecting the stories from the other American expats here for a chapter in a new book. The closest thing I can compare it to that makes any sense is that the people of Guanajuato, especially when on the street walking with them, appear to be functional autistics. If you’ve ever worked with the population of the disabled you know what I mean. You are just a thing to knock out of the way, climb over, ignore, or go through like you aren’t even there. I cannot get a grip on this with any other explanation. It as though you do not exist. Invisible. I have emails from other Mexicans from other less “provincial” parts of Mexico who have reported the same observations about their fellow Mexicans in Guanajuato. What am I going to do? I don’t know. But maybe, just maybe, this is part of the adventure. What I do know is that as a writer I will never present an unrealistic, Pollyanna view of what it’s like to live in Mexico as an American expat. That much I do know.
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