The combative nature of expat relationships in Mexico was recently on full display in one of Guanajuato’s Facebook chat groups. The initial question was innocent: a person asked why it can be so difficult to get change in Mexican shops (he should have tried 20 years ago!) Some responses were helpful and informative, but a few were very harsh, saying in effect, “If getting change is so important to you, go back to where you came from.”
I asked the administrator of this group, John Fiori, about this kind of hostility, and he told me he noticed a repeated set of themes that people become contentious about, which he doesn’t hear in face-to-face conversation. These include:
- Don’t tip too much, because it messes with the local economy.
- Similarly, don’t pay too much for your house.
- Don’t take a job from a Mexican.
- You should make Mexican friends, like I do, rather than hang around fellow gringos.
- San Miguel (or pick the town) is filled with gringos, which is why Guanajuato is better.
- You need to speak Spanish.
- We are foreigners, not expats.
- We moved here, but now you can’t, because Guanajuato is full.
- You’re not prepared enough to move to Mexico.
- Don’t try to change Mexico. Just go home.
I cringed when I read these, because I have been guilty of some of them. In 2018, when my husband Barry and I became aware how many new people were moving to Guanajuato, I felt threatened, as though I had some territorial right to the city that superseded theirs. But I got my comeuppance when I ran into a resident who had lived in Guanajuato much longer than we had. I mentioned to her that I felt overwhelmed by the influx of newcomers. “That’s how I felt when people like you started coming,” she said. Touché!
I notice my desire to sometimes one-up other foreigners. “Barry and I have lived here 20 years,” I boast, as though this confers some moral superiority. And I feel envious of my peers who have more Mexican friends than I have. As these examples show, foreigners unite around language and culture, but, based on my experience and others I’ve talked with, competition, hostility, and anxiety can also be part of the mix.
Social media and FOMO
Barry and I usually arrive in Guanajuato in late November, not long before Mexico’s extended holiday season — from Día de la Virgen to Noche Buena to Día de los Tres Reyes. The season is challenging, because gringo parties abound, and we often aren’t invited. Since we don’t live here full time, people don’t necessarily think of us. Or who knows, maybe we’re not invited for some embarrassingly personal reason!
Ironically, I’m not much of a fiestera, a party animal, and I usually feel very cozy spending winter evenings in our sala at night, reading and watching movies. But I still feel hurt if we’re left out, especially when I scroll through photos of private parties that people post on Facebook. “Do you have to showcase a gathering where not everyone is invited?” asks my inner 12-year-old.
Then my adult self tries to reframe it. They’re simply sharing their pleasure, not intending to be hurtful. Be happy for them, I tell myself. But no matter how hard I try, I still feel like I’m back in the eighth grade, wanting to be part of the popular crowd. This year my solution was to log out of Facebook for awhile, and that helped.
I don’t believe people go out of their way to exclude others. After all, Barry and I host an annual Boxing Day party, and this year, because too many guests makes me anxious, we kept the invitation list small. Probably others feel the same constraints.
Fiori thinks group activities are “easier to see in Guanajuato because there are relatively few of us, so what everyone else is doing is more visible.” I agree, especially because Guanajuato’s expat community is a village within what is already a small city. If we were talking about gringo parties in big cities like Mexico City, Guadalajara, or Querétaro, there would be much less of a sense of “insider” and “outsider.”
Criticism of other expats
For the entire time we’ve been here, I’ve heard gringos in Guanajuato making sweeping generalizations about those in San Miguel, even people they didn’t know. “They all live in gated communities.” “They’re not embedded in the culture.” “None of them speak Spanish” (though many Guanajuato gringos don’t speak Spanish, either.)
One year, while in San Miguel as a presenter at the Writers Conference, I mentioned this to a local expat. “That’s what we say about the folks in Lake Chapala,” she said, laughing. “None of them speak Spanish!”
Early on, I asked one of my first teachers how she viewed the foreigners in Guanajuato, versus those in San Miguel. She shrugged. “You’re all gringos, wherever you live,” she said. That put it in perspective! These nuances that seem so important to us were negligible in her eyes.
Like other gringos in Guanajuato, I make an effort to accept the cultural values I find in Mexico, which sometimes differ from my own. But recently I’ve decided to spend just as much effort accepting and appreciating the divergent values I find in my own tribe.
Louisa Rogers and her husband Barry Evans divide their lives between Guanajuato and Eureka, on California’s North Coast. Louisa writes articles and essays about expat life, Mexico, travel, physical and psychological health, retirement and spirituality. Her recent articles can be found on her website, authory.com/LouisaRogers.
