The Politics of Expatriating to Mexico

Writing articles about Americans who expatriate to Mexico is not fun. If you are an expat who realizes you got bamboozled by the

"There's-a-Fantasy-Island-Welcoming-Party-waiting-just-for-
you rhetoric",

and you want to say so, forget it! You will be slandered into silence or threatened or both!

And why do fakepats attack? They do so mostly out of delusional thinking. They think that to express an opinion stemming from an expatriation philosophy that differs from theirs is threatening. They think you are out to get them. They take exception that you have the mind-boggling thought that to be considered an expat, you should learn the language so you can assimilate into the culture of the country to which you claim you've expatriated.

I've been writing about expat issues in the Mexican city in which my wife and I live and we've been the targets of scorn for doing so. So paranoid are these fakepats that they cannot tolerate someone discussing what it means to expatriate to a country. If expatriation is assimilation into a country's culture to the extent you are as invisible as possible, then why do so many people who send me anonymous emails want to see me hung out to dry?

Why?

They don't expatriate.

The vast majority of Americans who move to Mexico never bother with language, which is the doorway to this magnificent culture.

Then, there are those who do learn the language, and learn it well, but not so they can access the culture. They do it for money.

They operate real estate businesses in order to rent and sell to gullible Gringos. They perpetuate the myth that the Gringo can move to Mexico and live like the Queen of England never having to associate with the riffraff. These money-driven cultural imperialists care not a whit about how they affect the culture.

It is these who are the most dangerous and who think nothing of telling you that you ought to die and maybe even go so far as to carry out their threats.

Opinions and Editorializing must be taken with a grain of salt. This is something that escapes the minds of these fakepats.

However, as the authors of The Ugly American wrote in their book, which I paraphrase here:

"When the Americans move to another country something happens to them, they change..."

The "Lord of the Flies" is a name that comes to mind most often when I try to think what happens when they move overseas.

THE PLAIN TRUTH ABOUT LIVING IN MEXICO