The flow of American emigrants to Mexico
Croucher, Sheila
THE TOWN I WAS destined for is full of immigrants, and over the past decade they have arrived in increasing numbers. Most do not learn the local language and reside and socialize within an...
...The result is a new realm of identity and belonging not constrained by geographical borders and not analyzable through reference to the concept of the nation-state...
...One American woman remarked, "Mexicans don't have a culture of civic involvement like Americans do...
...Transnational Belonging Americans repeatedly list the large and friendly expatriate community as a significant pull factor to San Miguel, and indeed, it is very easy to meet Americans in San Miguel...
...Whether they invoke the friendships they have established, the satisfaction they receive from volunteering, or the pleasure of chatting with neighbors on the street, a sense of community is important to these Americans in Mexico...
...This way, Americans in Mexico maintain Medicare benefits, access to U.S...
...migrants also identify financial push factors, particularly with regard to health care costs...
...January through March, the town is packed with snowbirds escaping the frigid winters of the northern United States and Canada...
...In May 2006, San Miguel's Englishlanguage newspaper surveyed Mexicans about U.S...
...Since then, the city has continued to attract U.S...
...With few exceptions, the lifestyles to which these Americans in Mexico have quickly grown accustomed, even those who are living on Social Security, include a maid, a cook, and a gardener...
...Push-and-Pull Factors Scholars often rely on the notion of push and pull to describe human migration...
...artists, writers (Jack Kerouac hung out there, and Beverly Donofrio, author of the cult classic Riding in Cars with Boys, is a fulltime resident), adventurers, and retirees...
...U.S...
...He established the famous art school, Instituto Allende (boasting teachers the likes of the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros), and recruited Americans who could use their G.I...
...citizens in San Miguel with a U.S...
...Whether these two flows are related remains to be seen, but both countries could benefit from a better understanding of the less visible dimensions of globalization...
...San Miguel, which attracts one of the largest populations of Americans in Mexico, is located in the state of Guanajuato, which is one of the top states for sending Mexican migrants to the United States...
...No such response has yet emerged in San Miguel, although on one of my last nights in the city, as I had dinner in a restaurant with a Mexican woman who works in real estate, my companion paused and said (in English): "Look around...
...Raquel Matehuala, a merchant, complained, "We are neighbors, and they should not take such measures against us...
...Americans in Mexico who get prescription drugs through Medicare must either return to the United States or have their drugs shipped to Mexico...
...The schools are fine, but once you exit the classroom door, the lingua franca in the restaurants, stores, on many park benches, and in the public library is English...
...Why do we Mexicans allow them to come to our country and treat them politely, and they instead treat us like that...
...It covers not only our medical costs but also almost all of our costofliving expenses...
...government's agenda...
...Whatever the labels, both Americans in Mexico and Mexicans in the United States live in a world where—thanks to technology— place and space are less determining factors in their sense of belonging or habits of daily life...
...Census Bureau and the Government Accounting Office recently dispensed with plans to include the American population abroad in the 2010 Census—arguing that it would not be cost effective...
...Most do not learn the local language and reside and socialize within an isolated cultural enclave...
...Curiously, almost every American in San Miguel also has an address in Laredo, Texas...
...Volumes of scholarship address why Mexican immigrants come North, from where, how, and with what implications for the United States...
...and we are doing important things for them that their government won't do...
...I met one of my most helpful contacts after mentioning the upcoming trip to my dental hygienist, who put me in touch with her high school friend who had recently moved to San Miguel...
...Responses varied, but included the following: Ana Maria Sanchez, a merchant, said, They know we Mexicans and other Latinos do the hardest jobs gringos would never do...
...citizens in Mexico who choose to break the law by working without the proper permits or not paying Mexican taxes...
...The Senate declared English the official language...
...Turning the lens toward U.S...
...citizens moving southward offers a fuller picture of the porousness of borders in North America and the intersection—sometimes collision—of global forces that underlie human migration and settlement...
...The framework is straightforward, although the analytical distinction between push and pull can blur...
...Deals are even more abundant for those U.S...
...citizens who proudly call San Miguel home...
...With so much attention focused on border crossing in North America, little attention has gone to migration southward...
...Doug Bower, author of The Plain Truth about Living in Mexico, for example, begins his tale with a "terrifyingly compelling reason to leave America...
...While the United States faces zero population growth and a bulging cohort of Americans sixty-five and older, an estimated 40 percent of Mexico's population is under the age of fifteen...
...Her response conveys a dilemma for San Miguel not unlike the dilemma that Mexico and other developing countries faced at earlier stages of global capitalist expansion...
...In anticipation of the 2006 U.S...
...Immigrants and their supporters took to the streets...
...politicians and pundits rail against...
...In fact, this growing insignificance of territoriality to how people live their daily lives is a defining feature of globalization...
...Nonetheless, there are some arguments for putting this issue on the U.S...
...Some Americans were less certain, but emphasized (sometimes unsolicited, and often defensively) that the foreign influx is good for Mexicans in San Miguel: "Forty new Americans here means forty new maid jobs...
...They are not registered as rental properties...
...phone numbers...
...Hence, it had become common practice for Americans in San Miguel to have family members ship the drugs to the American consulate, because the Mexican government is prohibited from opening a diplomatic package...
...In the United States, Mexican immigrants typically settle in cities where large numbers of Mexicans already reside, where Spanish is spoken widely, where they can buy fresh tortillas, and where they can interact with fellow nationals who share information about how to navigate unfamiliar terrain...
...The same holds true for the U.S...
...As more Mexican immigrants in the United States are sending money back to Mexico, financial institutions utilize new technologies to ease the transactions and profit from the cross-border ties...
...Clancy was at the meeting to introduce himself to the American community and field questions—a majority of which focused on the import of prescription drugs from the United States...
...For many reasons, Americans living in Mexico find it useful to have a U.S...
...Some Americans and Mexican city officials acknowledged that this was not technically legal in Mexico, but that the technology was far ahead of any agency's ability to regulate it...
...box in San Miguel...
...With the increasing popularity of places like San Miguel, many Americans now know someone, or know someone who knows someone, who lives in Mexico...
...Most respond by stating, simply, "II am an American living in Mexico...
...Their presence is so pervasive that local governments have been forced to adapt by providing services to address the needs of this growing foreign population...
...Ironically, many of these same Americans report with enthusiasm the arrival of a new Home Depot just outside of town, joining Wal-Mart and Costco...
...Financial security is one draw...
...These undocumented American workers in Mexico won't be forced to run out the back door of a restaurant when immigration officials arrive, but they may choose not to answer the door when the Hacienda (Mexico's IRS) comes knocking at their bed and breakfast to check for a lodging license or arrives at the offices where Americans deal in lucrative property investment to request to see their Mexican real estate license...
...So did the Minutemen Militia...
...These bloggers share stories and photographs of their life in a foreign land and offer advice to other Americans contemPOLITICS ABROAD plating migration...
...author Tony Cohan romanticized San Miguel in his 2000 best seller, On Mexican Time, and DISSENT / Winter 2007 n 23 POLITICS ABROAD the town's popularity increases with every new feature story in glossy travel magazines...
...When migrants leave Mexico to work in the United States, they are being both pushed by a lack of economic opportunity and pulled by the promise of better wages...
...Scholars described how immigrants to the United States were remaining closely interconnected with their countries of origin while establishing new networks in their country of settlement...
...citizens in San Miguel live their lives speaking English, socializing with Americans, and mixing little with Mexicans outside of the relationships they form with their domestic help...
...The newly appointed American consular agent, Ed Clancy, was an invited speaker...
...residents seeking tickets to the sold-out Fourth of July celebration...
...During the 1980s, dependency theorists analyzed how countries throughout Latin America, or other "peripheral" countries, were developing in the sense of increasing their gross domestic product or foreign direct investment...
...The history of foreigners living in San Miguel dates back to the 1940s, when Chicago resident Stirling Dickinson settled in the town...
...Medicare to be extended overseas...
...I am the only Mexican in here...
...Some arrive with good intentions and periodically enroll at one of the town's language institutes, but they repeatedly bemoan the challenge of learning a new language later in life, and in a town heavily populated by English speakers...
...Technology facilitates for these migrants more frequent travel and communication across borders, the sending of remittances, the support and oversight of civic improvement projects in home villages, and long-distance participation in special celebrations...
...In June 2006, one popular list with more than three hundred members had several posts by U.S...
...yet, it is unclear whether the expansion of maid jobs or the selling off of prime downtown real estate benefits the town and its native inhabitants in the long run...
...Internet groups also exist through which Americans in San Miguel organize social gatherings, coordinate philanthropic activities, and exchange tips about how to avoid intestinal amoebas or establish a secure high-speed Internet connection...
...Meanwhile, Mexican youth enter adulthood facing a stagnant economy coupled with heightened expectations for material wellbeing, resulting in part from the success of globalization in homogenizing consumer tastes the world over...
...Some live and work in the new country without proper documentation and have even been involved in the illegal transport of drugs across state borders...
...SOME MEXICAN OFFICIALS are paying attention to this question, but what interest does the U.S...
...In other words, to what extent do these American migrants assimilate into Mexican society...
...address, and several American-owned mail companies in San Miguel provide them one...
...Increasing numbers of Americans will soon enter retirement (approximately seventy-six million in the next twenty years), and many will struggle to support themselves on meager pensions, a failing Social Security system, and a rising cost of living (including astronomical health care costs...
...In the United States, you can't buy anything anymore in the $200,000 to $300,000 range," and "Property taxes in Mexico are next to nothing...
...financial services, memberships with Netflix, and eBay, and the timely arrival of their favorite U.S...
...bill to attend the school...
...Mexicans in the United States now have access to inexpensive phone cards for calling home, although this often requires arranging to have a family member stationed at one of the local homes or businesses in the village that has a functioning phone line...
...Few American residents of San Miguel speak Spanish, including those who have lived in the city for ten or more years...
...VOIP customers choose from a list of U.S...
...midterm elections, they were trying to decide whether to raise money for the party as a whole or to support particular candidates in tight races...
...Americans abroad also unite around specific policy issues, such as current calls for U.S...
...The possibility of this group's widespread self-identification as "Mexicans living in the United States" is precisely what many U.S...
...Clancy explained that the practice was not legal and would no longer continue 26 n DISSENT / Winter 2007 because of increased security concerns...
...We wondered if we would ever be able to afford to retire in our own country...
...magazines...
...Beginning in the 1990s, the concepts of transnationalism and transmigration emerged to capture changes in the nature of migration and belonging...
...Nor is Mexico on the growing list of hotspots where U.S...
...This latter group, who may have once been tourists themselves, now form a resident population of anywhere from 8,000 to 12,000 U.S...
...Migration to Mexico is increasing the size of the overseas electorate, and tight races as in the past two presidential elections magnify the political potential of this population (as does the fact that as retirees many of these migrants already belong to a politically mobilized demographic...
...The impact of the foreign community on San Miguel is also debated in relation to the town's real estate boom...
...The latter requires navigating complex and costly Mexican customs regulations...
...In July and August, Texans arrive seeking reprieve from the sweltering heat of the U.S...
...Democrats in the town report outnumbering Republicans ten to one, and the officers of Republicans Abroad suggested that the ratio is even more unfavorable...
...Many also continue to focus political energy toward the United States...
...Others, namely Americans, bemoan the growing commercialization of "their" authentic Mexican town...
...proposals to build a wall along the border...
...citizens might be in danger...
...As with any clandestine activity, firm data are elusive, but both Mexican officials and the expatriate community are well aware of the activity...
...Americans in San Miguel are also pulled and pushed simulta24 n DISSENT / Winter 2007 neously, although many bristled at the notion of being objects of study: "Our situation," they assured me, "is completely different...
...In recent years, San Miguel has become home to a growing number of younger American professionals whose work in the high-tech industry allows them to live anywhere...
...The houses they purchase for bargain prices are magnificent colonial structures with spectacularly tiled floors, garden fountains, and rooftop terraces...
...This development, however, was deemed dependent development in that it tied Latin America more tightly into DISSENT / Winter 2007 n 27 POLITICS ABROAD the international economy but did not lay the groundwork for stable economic growth or equitable income distribution...
...employers or friends and relatives in the United States that so many Americans now reside in San Miguel, but how does their presence affect Mexican residents...
...In the United States, Mexicans and Mexican Americans, for whatever reasons they came and for however long they or their ancestors may have been in the country, are typically referred to as "immigrants" or, often erroneously, as "illegal aliens...
...Americans in San Miguel frequently comment on the ways in which they find "Mexican life" preferable to that in the United States: "I can't remember the last time someone asked me for a business card—I love that about Mexico...
...City officials and real estate agents estimate that foreigners now own more than 50 percent of the homes in city center, and Mexicans increasingly live in the neighborhoods, or colonias, growing up outside of the town...
...By Mexican standards, San Miguel is not cheap—in fact, it is reportedly the most expensive city in Mexico—but for Americans living off the U.S...
...The U.S...
...At least 150 houses are listed in San Miguel, and 95 percent are owned by POLITICS ABROAD foreigners...
...This facilitates connectedness across expansive space, but also illustrates the insignificance of place...
...Many Americans assess the situation as follows: "If Mexicans can sell their homes in el centro to foreigners for a huge profit, then they can buy a bigger house outside of town and maybe send a kid to college...
...The day I flew south across the infamous 2,000-mile border, in the comfort of an air-conditioned plane, George W. Bush ordered National Guard troops to deploy along that border, in an effort to stop the desperate thousands arriving from the other direction...
...For decades, artists and writers have marveled at the way the light reflects off the Gothic-style, rose-colored Parroquia, or parish church, next to the town's main square...
...Like Mexicans in the United States, Americans in Mexico make regular trips to the homeland and maintain close contact with relatives and friends across the border...
...citizens living in Mexico...
...In 2004, this group raised more than $10,000 to support presidential candidate John Kerry...
...The short answer seems to be very little...
...The goal is to identify the confluence of factors that push migrants to leave their home and pull them to settle in a new location...
...28 n DISSENT / Winter 2007...
...Twenty dollars a month provides a Laredo address and regular delivery from that address to a P.O...
...They" are U.S...
...Finally, albeit unlikely, there is the potential for backlash against Americans in Mexico on the part of the Mexican government or its citizens...
...SHEILA CROUCHER is a professor of political science at Miami University in Ohio and author, most recently, of Globalization and Belonging: The Politics of Identity in a Changing World...
...The American Consulate in San Miguel does not know how many Americans are there...
...According to a study by the Harvard Medical School, 50 percent of bankruptcies filed in the United States in 2001 were medically related...
...U.S...
...area codes, and callers have no way of knowing that the person who answers is actually in Mexico, not Pittsburgh...
...Americans in Mexico use Voice Over Internet Phones (VOIP...
...professionals who practice their craft within the foreign community, whether financial advising, architecture, psychotherapy, massage, or art dealing, without securing a work permit or reporting their income...
...Today, San Miguel clearly benefits from a service economy fueled by foreign residents and tourists...
...Southwest...
...Franyuti estimates that unlicensed business in the city costs the local government more than four million pesos a year—an excess of $360,000—in lost taxes and fees...
...I was on my way to San Miguel Allende, nestled in the mountains of central Mexico in the state of Guanajuato, to begin a research project on the town's large, and predominantly American, immigrant community...
...Real estate bargains, affordable servants, low taxes, and other financial loopholes pull Americans to Mexico, but many U.S...
...For Bower and many others, migration southward solves the problem: "In Mexico, my pension is more than twice that of a middle-class family's income...
...Grocery stores are stocked with locally unfamiliar products that hail from their homeland...
...Scholars have analyzed how migration can act as a safety valve for countries like Mexico or Cuba, which lessen their domestic tensions by exporting disgruntled citizens to the United States...
...Although many Americans find cultural attitudes in Mexico more welcoming than in the United States, established social networks also influence migration southward—just as similar networks influence Mexican migration northward...
...The image of U.S...
...They gather in the jardin to discuss politics, they attend cultural events at the public library founded by the American community in the 1950s, they worship at services that range from Baptist to Unitarian to Buddhist, they enjoy English-language films at American-owned luxury hotels, they shop in specialty stores that sell anything from Silk brand soy milk to "Pinche Bush" buttons (the most polite translation offered is "Screw Bush"), and they run an impressive array of philanthropic organizations from the Lions Club to the Animal Protection Society...
...For an average of $20 a month, companies like Vonage provide U.S...
...Whereas many Mexicans in the United States share videotapes (of weddings, birthdays, and annual fiestas) that arrive from the home village, Americans in Mexico blog...
...City officials and Mexico's National Migration Institute estimate that foreigners (mostly Americans) make up close to 15 percent of the town's 80,000 inhabitants...
...Indeed, travelers interested in learning Spanish are advised to avoid San Miguel...
...These recruits could "live like kings in Mexico" on a stipend that did not stretch nearly so far in the United States...
...They should do the same with Mexicans...
...they don't have to have the latest Game Boy...
...On June 4, 2006, the Democrats Abroad held a meeting of close to a hundred people in Finnegan's Pub...
...but perhaps the most honest answer came from a forty-sixyearold Mexican woman, born and raised in San Miguel, who teaches Spanish at one of the local language schools: "De ellos comemos," she said, "From them we eat...
...Living in Miami, in 1990, I remember many Americans responding to that city's immigrant influx with a bumper sticker that read, "Will the last American leaving Miami please bring the flag...
...Americans in San Miguel not only live financially convenient, transnational lives, but virtual ones as well...
...The answer is minimally...
...Here in San Miguel, there are plenty of gringos, and we treat them politely...
...Republicans in the House called for making undocumented residence in the United States a felony...
...Technology similarly allows Americans in Mexico to bank, pay credit cards, and manage investments in the United States without leaving the spectacular view from their high-tech home offices in the Mexican mountains...
...As an American, and an outsider, it was difficult for me to gauge accurately the Mexican response to foreign immigrants...
...culture is another, particularly for Americans who have grown disenchanted with the pace or tone of life in the United States...
...Is the United States doing the same with cash-strapped retirees who move to Mexico...
...From Them We Eat It may matter little to U.S...
...DISCUSSING THE U.S...
...migrants to San Miguel identify a range of reasons for the move, but no one answers the question without reference to economic factors: "In the United States, I could not sustain the lifestyle to which I was accustomed, living on my retirement pension," or "There are such great real estate deals here...
...Many Americans seem disillusioned about rampant consumerism in the United States and respect less materialistic attitudes in Mexico: "The kids here are happy with any kind of toy...
...citizens in Mexico living together, working together, and playing together begs the question that consumes policymakers and academics in the United DISSENT / Winter 2007 n 25 POLITICS ABROAD States about Mexicans...
...Meanwhile, San Miguel prepared for its second major tourist influx of the year...
...Registering with the consulate is voluntary, and many Americans laughed at the idea that they would bother to do so...
...government have in its growing expatriate population in Mexico...
...These immigrants practice their own cultural traditions and celebrate their national holidays...
...A software developer in his forties and an online computer science teacher both commented that many people with whom they worked had "no idea where I am, and it doesn't matter...
...Cristobal Finkelstein Franyuti, director of international relations for the city, explains: "Just look on Vrbo.com [Vacation Rentals By Owner...
...They are not paying income tax or lodging tax...
...They are typically not paying Mexican Social Security to their domestic help...
...Sitting on a bench in the jardin, one American woman who had been living in San Miguel for eleven years assured me, "They love us here...
...population in San Miguel poses a terminological dilemma: are they immigrants, expatriates, a diaspora, gringos, aliens...
...Sandra Galicia, a flower seller, commented, "We should forbid gringos from coming into Mexico, just as they do with us...
...Few choose to pursue citizenship in their adopted land, and most follow closely and participate in the political and economic life of their homeland...
...phone number and unlimited calls to and from other U.S...
...Some local residents, namely Mexicans, welcome the capital infusion that accompanies the tourist seasons...
...In addition to climate, people flock to San Miguel to enjoy the scenery, colonial architecture, art galleries, and cultural festivities...
...dollar, bargains are plentiful...
...contrary to Robert Putnam's thesis regarding their counterparts in the United States, they are not "bowling alone...
...During the weeks prior to my departure, in June 2006, antiimmigrant hysteria swept the United States...
Vol. 54 • January 2007 • No. 1
