Speaker 1: Hey, what's up, Latino usay listener komotuta. So today we're
Speaker 1: going to share an episode from the United Stateless podcast.
Speaker 1: It's hosted by Mexican American Alexandra Ribera. The podcast documents
Speaker 1: the stories of the so called returnees, people who emigrated
Speaker 1: to the United States, largely as children, but have since
Speaker 1: returned to their home country. In the first season, United
Speaker 1: Stateless focuses on Mexico with stories of life, love, spanglish,
Speaker 1: and cultural shock. When you're figuring out exactly where is home?
Speaker 1: Listen to alex an episode from season one where Alexandra
Speaker 1: explores what's it like to actually grow up in Mexico
Speaker 1: and a warning to our listeners, this episode includes some
Speaker 1: explicit language and mature content. Enjoy.
Speaker 2: Most Americans don't know a lot about Mexico, even as
Speaker 2: a kind of Mexican American. I can say that I
Speaker 2: came knowing some stuff, but I don't think I was
Speaker 2: really prepared for my first trip as an adult. Ye See,
Speaker 2: I hadn't been to Mexico since I was a baby.
Speaker 2: When I was six weeks old, my parents were visiting
Speaker 2: some family near the border, and they took me to
Speaker 2: this town called Noglees. I guess my grandparents would take
Speaker 2: my dad and his siblings there to go shopping, and
Speaker 2: in the fifties it must have been a nice spot,
Speaker 2: but this was the eighties and it was becoming ultra
Speaker 2: and narco. We lasted only a few hours before my
Speaker 2: parents got freaked out and took me and my brother
Speaker 2: back over the border to Arizona. They haven't been there
Speaker 2: since I was born in the US, but I grew
Speaker 2: up in a community where a lot of people had immigrated,
Speaker 2: and while they were there were representatives for pretty much
Speaker 2: every livable continent save Australia. Almost everyone from a Latin
Speaker 2: background was a refugee for most Salvador. My main exposure
Speaker 2: to Latin identity growing up was a bunch of people
Speaker 2: who had the very very specific experience of fleeing a
Speaker 2: civil war. I definitely didn't have that. I didn't even
Speaker 2: really speak Spanish at the time, but most of all,
Speaker 2: my family had been in what's now considered the US
Speaker 2: for generations, and my mom's not Latin. So when people
Speaker 2: ask me what are you? I felt like I didn't
Speaker 2: really have a good answer. The part was people really
Speaker 2: wanted me to have a good answer They seem to
Speaker 2: have this checklist in their mind that one needed to
Speaker 2: check off in order to be sufficiently Latin. And I
Speaker 2: never really checked off any of those boxes. And I
Speaker 2: couldn't escape the question either. I mean, my name is
Speaker 2: Alexandra Rivera. People would see my name and want to
Speaker 2: be told a story that would make them feel comfortable
Speaker 2: with identifying me a certain way. That was just, you know,
Speaker 2: trying to live my life. I have to admit I
Speaker 2: was really jealous of my classmates who had immigrated. I mean,
Speaker 2: I wasn't jealous of the experience of being an immigrant.
Speaker 2: I was jealous that they had a short, quick answer
Speaker 2: to the question what are you? Because in my mind,
Speaker 2: they didn't have these identity issues I was rapidly developing.
Speaker 2: It was easy for them. They were Salvadorian and of conversation,
Speaker 2: no explaining their whole family history upon meeting people. Also,
Speaker 2: in my mind, everyone was completely fluent in Spanish. I
Speaker 2: was very jealous of that too. I compared myself to
Speaker 2: the population around me and came to the conclusion that
Speaker 2: we didn't really have anything in common. But then I
Speaker 2: went to Mexico City for the first time. By this
Speaker 2: point in my life, I had learned Spanish. My grandfather
Speaker 2: had forgotten English due to dementia, so it became pretty imperative.
Speaker 2: That plus a lifetime of strangers being disappointed that I
Speaker 2: didn't speak a language that, quite frankly, a lot of
Speaker 2: them didn't speak, and a few months dating a Spanish
Speaker 2: translator really put things into motion. And I thought I
Speaker 2: was pretty well prepared. I just traveled through Spain and
Speaker 2: had been fine. In fact, I even knew some Mexican
Speaker 2: slang for my dad, like he told me that people
Speaker 2: called each other abato. He even calls white Ford F
Speaker 2: one fifties vatomobiles. I thought I probably had an advantage
Speaker 2: in Mexico because I'd grown up knowing some Mexican shit,
Speaker 2: like that pasoli was a dish made exclusively with pork,
Speaker 2: and that I could definitely understand the accent, and that
Speaker 2: there were people that looked like me. I thought I
Speaker 2: was about to experience a weird identity affirming homecoming. Long
Speaker 2: story short, I was wrong about pretty much everything, and
Speaker 2: I was about to experience a shit ton of culture shock.
Speaker 2: So in this episode, I'm going to try and explain
Speaker 2: what I learned about Mexico. So the best I can,
Speaker 2: specifically Mexico City, where much of our story takes place,
Speaker 2: because I want you to know what these returneys are
Speaker 2: returning to, and if you're American, you probably have a
Speaker 2: lot of ideas of what Mexico is like. There's Cancun,
Speaker 2: really great food, a lot of crime or misconceptions like
Speaker 2: it's hot everywhere. I actually had to buy sweaters when
Speaker 2: I was there. I'm Alexandra Rivera and this is United stateless.
Speaker 3: Well, Mexico City has so much to offer. I'm super
Speaker 3: in love with this city. And the thing is that
Speaker 3: it has everything a big capital of the world can
Speaker 3: offer and probably half of the price.
Speaker 2: This is Alejandro Montez. Alex is a filmmaker in Chilango,
Speaker 2: which is the local term for Mexico City native. I
Speaker 2: met Alex on my friend stay in Mexico City, I
Speaker 2: run in New York had given me his number over WhatsApp.
Speaker 2: Alex thought he was probably meeting a five foot two
Speaker 2: Puerto Rican. Check he was on vacation, not a five
Speaker 2: foot eight supposed mixed Mexican American who was going through
Speaker 2: an identity crisis.
Speaker 4: He kindly spent a lot of time educating me about
Speaker 4: the country but.
Speaker 3: It's it's really interesting because you have the best of everything.
Speaker 3: You know, like you can go to the best art gallery.
Speaker 3: One of the best things of Mexico City or weather
Speaker 3: we have most through most of the year a really mild,
Speaker 3: good temperature. The other thing is that the city is
Speaker 3: really green. We have so many trees, we have so
Speaker 3: many flowers, like we have aah, like really good mix
Speaker 3: of being on a city. But you can actually be
Speaker 3: next to a really old tree. Because Mexico City, you're
Speaker 3: actually walking on the notchtip land, you're actually walking on
Speaker 3: the super ancient ground where the Aztecs were.
Speaker 2: Mexico City has been around for a long time. Around
Speaker 2: the year thirteen twenty five, the Mishika were also known
Speaker 2: as the Aztecs, built the capital of their empire in Tenotechlin.
Speaker 2: The story of the founding is very famous to Mexican history,
Speaker 2: so much so that it's immortalized on its flag. One night,
Speaker 2: the Machika's leader was visited by a god in a dream,
Speaker 2: who imparted to them that they would come across an
Speaker 2: eagle perched on a cactus devouring a snake. When they
Speaker 2: saw this, he proclaimed they would know where to build
Speaker 2: the city. So after several generations of wandering around North America,
Speaker 2: the tribe came across the sacred symbol the issue the eagles, snake,
Speaker 2: and cactus were on an island in the middle of
Speaker 2: a lake. So Mexico City started out as a floating city.
Speaker 2: The Michika made a series of man made islands and
Speaker 2: gardens and created canals that connected all of them. Think
Speaker 2: of it as a massive venus with much more greenery.
Speaker 2: If you've heard anything about the Michika, it's probably that
Speaker 2: they sacrifice people. This is not something the Spanish made up.
Speaker 2: Several of the religious practices involved a blood offering, which
Speaker 2: historically had been made by sacrificing someone in their own community.
Speaker 2: But the Michika were very successful militarily, and they took
Speaker 2: a lot of captives from other tribes in the Valley
Speaker 2: of Mexico, so it became a much more common practice
Speaker 2: for them to sacrifice a captive from a conquered area
Speaker 2: than one of their own people. And since the gods
Speaker 2: seemed to really be smiling down on them, they practice
Speaker 2: sacrifice much much more than other cultures in the region.
Speaker 2: When the Spanish came into the picture in the sixteenth century,
Speaker 2: they faced a formidable opponent in the Mehika, but they
Speaker 2: had an advantage, and not because the Michika leader Machtezuma.
Speaker 2: The second thought that Hernan Cortez was the god kiss
Speaker 2: Aquadal That was probably an invention by the Spanish. Turns out,
Speaker 2: being the most hated tribe in the valley of Mexico
Speaker 2: can make you some enemies. The local tribes contributed many troops,
Speaker 2: as well as knowledge of the layout of the city.
Speaker 2: The Spanish brought with them weapons that had never been
Speaker 2: seen in the area before and small parks. After three months,
Speaker 2: the conquisadors and local tribes were victorious, but Tenotechlm was
Speaker 2: mostly destroyed. After the victory, Cortez was able to take
Speaker 2: much of modern day Mexico under his control. The colony
Speaker 2: was called New Spain and lasted for three hundred years.
Speaker 2: In the eighteenth century, the Spanish drained much of the
Speaker 2: lake that Tenotechlm was built on, making way for more
Speaker 2: buildings in Mexico City. This was an incredibly stupid idea
Speaker 2: that has left the city in a very precarious situation
Speaker 2: when it comes to the stability of its architecture. Note,
Speaker 2: if you're going to build a city in an area
Speaker 2: that is prone to earthquakes, don't build it on a
Speaker 2: lake bed. There is part of the canal and island
Speaker 2: system that exists today. It's called Zochimilco, and if you
Speaker 2: or in Mexico City, it's totally worth the visit. According
Speaker 2: to my dad's deep delve into genealogy, his Spanish family
Speaker 2: came to Mexico City in the fifteen hundreds. They were
Speaker 2: Sephardic Jews who were escaping the Spanish Inquisition. I'm not
Speaker 2: exactly sure how my dad's family came to what is
Speaker 2: today New Mexico, but I know that it was a
Speaker 2: popular spot for people to move after the Mexican Inquisition.
Speaker 2: My ancestors, who were part of various Pueblo tribes, had
Speaker 2: been there for a while. At the time, New Mexico
Speaker 2: was part of Mexico, along with states such as Arizona
Speaker 2: and California, until the Americans invaded in the eighteen forties.
Speaker 2: In nineteen twelve, it officially became a state. The thing
Speaker 2: about New Mexico is that it feels like a different
Speaker 2: country from the rest of the US. It's very Latin,
Speaker 2: but it's also definitely not Mexico despite all of the
Speaker 2: Chilean tamales. Although it has a lot in common with
Speaker 2: Mexico in terms of shared history and cultural practices, it's
Speaker 2: also kind of its own place, which was something that
Speaker 2: hit home for me very profoundly when I visited Mexico
Speaker 2: City for the first time.
Speaker 3: I would describe Mexico City like a really like a
Speaker 3: really young, funny bybrand city with a really old blood
Speaker 3: and spirit, you know, like a superpower, you know, because
Speaker 3: you can feel the magic of the place. That because
Speaker 3: the Mexicans, because of our culture, we do have a
Speaker 3: really magical way of thinking, a really magical way of
Speaker 3: seeing life or death.
Speaker 2: Although the Aztecs were conquered by the Spanish, their culture
Speaker 2: and spirit was not. The spiritual and magical beliefs of
Speaker 2: pre European contact Mexico are very much alive and well
Speaker 2: in today's Mexico City, as well as like other places
Speaker 2: in the world. Quite frankly, have you ever heard of
Speaker 2: our cleansing, that rose quarts will help your love life,
Speaker 2: that keeping aloe by the door keeps your home safe.
Speaker 2: In the US, people have filed that under a phenomenon
Speaker 2: known as New Age, but in fact those are all
Speaker 2: pre European contact Mexican beliefs. It's not a new or
Speaker 2: French thing there. If you tell your Mexican friend that
Speaker 2: you're feeling off, they might tell you to go charge
Speaker 2: your crystals. There are people in the street who will
Speaker 2: cleanse your aura, and they aren't there for Taurus. Another
Speaker 2: thing that survived Cortees the food.
Speaker 3: And also the food I don't know, like there are
Speaker 3: some tacos that it's just because they gave it to
Speaker 3: you in a really low key restaurant, but if you
Speaker 3: present them and put another plate thing in, you can
Speaker 3: give it in a diplomatic dinner because they're so yummy.
Speaker 2: Quite frankly, I was intimidated by the food when I
Speaker 2: got there. I really wanted to go to one of
Speaker 2: those street food stalls, but I was having a hard
Speaker 2: time understanding people, and there are no menus at those
Speaker 2: places by and large, so I tried to start out
Speaker 2: with food I knew, like pasole. I quickly discovered that
Speaker 2: I grew up with one. I a pasole, a recipe
Speaker 2: that is most popular in Northern Mexico and New Mexico,
Speaker 2: and thought that that was the only way to do it.
Speaker 2: Turns out it can also be made with chicken, and
Speaker 2: sometimes it's made with no chili, And pretty much all
Speaker 2: of my references were for the north of Mexico, and
Speaker 2: people were very very quick to point this out. I
Speaker 2: kind of felt the trade like I thought I knew
Speaker 2: the answer to a test and then showed up for
Speaker 2: the wrong class. And I was putting a lot of
Speaker 2: pressure on myself to get it, because that was what
Speaker 2: I conveyed back home, that I got it, that I
Speaker 2: was like vaguely Mexican American, that that's what I had
Speaker 2: settled on. And this realization that maybe I didn't get it,
Speaker 2: or maybe I was in the wrong part of the
Speaker 2: country to get it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Speaker 2: I felt like I had failed. And the funny thing
Speaker 2: was people in Mexico knew that I was a foreigner.
Speaker 2: No one was disappointed that I didn't get it. Or
Speaker 2: by this point my self, doubt had reached the fever
Speaker 2: pitch so bad that I was having trouble ordering coffee.
Speaker 2: It was all in my head. Alex was very happy
Speaker 2: to explain everything to me. It was almost like he
Speaker 2: had a Mexico for dummy's curriculum.
Speaker 3: And if you can find one or two friends that
Speaker 3: would also show you the local we called changaro, like
Speaker 3: this little like a food truck, you know, like a
Speaker 3: little place we called Changaro. And if you find someone
Speaker 3: that would show you where to it from the cheapest,
Speaker 3: most low key changaro to a good restaurant, I think
Speaker 3: that you will understand a lot of Mexicans and Mexico culture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say when whenever I asked my Mexican
Speaker 2: friends like, hey, let's go on to dinner, They're like,
Speaker 2: we picked the most fresh up place possible.
Speaker 5: That's why they saw you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's very hard to get a bad
Speaker 2: meal in Mexico City. There's a lot of food I
Speaker 2: found that I was surprised never caught on in the US,
Speaker 2: especially the Costra. The first time I had it, Alex
Speaker 2: took me to basically the Chipotle of tacarias in Mexico City.
Speaker 2: You know, the chain that you don't feel embarrassed about
Speaker 2: eating at. It's basically a taco made out of fried
Speaker 2: cheese in a taco. It sounds like a recipe that
Speaker 2: was made in Wisconsin by someone who had a vague
Speaker 2: idea of what they were doing. It's amazing taco wise,
Speaker 2: Mexico City is known for the alpastor, a marinated pork
Speaker 2: and pineapple creation that borrows a lot from shwarma. In fact,
Speaker 2: it was created by Lebanese immigrants to the region. Meat
Speaker 2: tends to be very regional in Mexico, as most things are.
Speaker 2: Actually the North is known for beef. Mexico City has
Speaker 2: pork aside from street food in thakarias. Mexico City is
Speaker 2: also home to two of the world's top fifty restaurants.
Speaker 2: There are any Michelin stars in the country because there
Speaker 2: is an a MI guide for Mexico, but if the
Speaker 2: government ever decided to pay for them to come, I'm
Speaker 2: sure they would clean up. I also want to clear
Speaker 2: up a few things about the food. Number one, Burritos
Speaker 2: are a Northern thing and they don't have rice in
Speaker 2: them or French fries. Number two. While Nacho's were technically
Speaker 2: invented in Mexico by a haired restaurant owner on a
Speaker 2: border town who was trying to make a group of
Speaker 2: Americans happy, Nacho is a nickname for a man called Ignacio.
Speaker 2: It's not really a thing here unless you go to Chili's,
Speaker 2: which is an American restaurant. The fijiita comes from Texas,
Speaker 2: the chimmy chianga is probably from Arizona, and the crunch
Speaker 2: wrap Supreme is from Taco bell I do want to
Speaker 2: cave at that. Although it's hard to get a bad
Speaker 2: meal in Mexico City, it's not hard to get food poisoning.
Speaker 2: Although I haven't gotten it every time I've gone, I
Speaker 2: did get it twice in a row the last time
Speaker 2: I was there, and from Fresa places, not jiangaros. Fresa
Speaker 2: means bougie. That's also not a foreigner belly thing. Locals
Speaker 2: will sometimes take a yearly anti parasitic. But something you
Speaker 2: don't need to worry about is the water or ice
Speaker 2: or like getting a salad. Almost no one drinks the
Speaker 2: water there, and no, there's no magical Mexican gut protocol
Speaker 2: that makes locals immune to sell Manila. It would take
Speaker 2: a whole second podcast to explain why water in Mexico
Speaker 2: City is a problem. And there are people who insist
Speaker 2: that the water is fine and it just has a
Speaker 2: bad reputation. And it is true that not every glass
Speaker 2: of water you draw from the tap has harm causing
Speaker 2: bacteria in it. It's a possibility it's not a guarantee. However,
Speaker 2: my friend turned me onto a water report from several
Speaker 2: years ago that indicated elevated levels of mercury in the tap.
Speaker 2: So I'll let you make your own decision on that one.
Speaker 2: Because of all these issues, Mexico is one of the
Speaker 2: highest consumers of bottled water in the world. I've even
Speaker 2: seen people in favelas with bottled water. Mexico in general
Speaker 2: has big economic divisions. I think there are a lot
Speaker 2: of people in the US who have this idea that
Speaker 2: everyone in Mexico is poor and really wants to go
Speaker 2: to the States. The short answer is that there is
Speaker 2: incredible wealth to go along with that heartbreaking poverty.
Speaker 3: So you can see the difference between all the big
Speaker 3: corporate buildings and all the major transnational businesses. Next to
Speaker 3: that place, there is a fabella. So that's something that
Speaker 3: you can see all over. You can come from a
Speaker 3: really posh neighborhood and solidly you cross a couple of
Speaker 3: streets and then you are there in the little town
Speaker 3: that gives service to that big, posh place.
Speaker 5: What was it like growing up there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was interesting because in my upbringing
Speaker 3: was kind of like I could see the best of
Speaker 3: two worlds. Like from my dad's side of the family,
Speaker 3: we come from a really humble working class origins in
Speaker 3: which my grandpa was a carpenter and a handyman. And
Speaker 3: from the other side, like, for example, my grandfather was
Speaker 3: a doctor. My family from my mother's side was like
Speaker 3: much more kind of like intellectuals.
Speaker 5: But I could see like the differences.
Speaker 3: My dad worked hard and really got to put himself
Speaker 3: and now his family into a really better position.
Speaker 5: So I grew up in with that privilege.
Speaker 3: But I would go and visit my grandpa, we my
Speaker 3: visit my cousins, and my family that would belong to
Speaker 3: a working classic, very Mexico City based families.
Speaker 2: The fact that Alex's dad moves social and economic classes
Speaker 2: is not unheard of in Mexico, but it's definitely not
Speaker 2: the no part of this was made possible because Alex's
Speaker 2: dad was in Mexico City and he'd gotten a scholarship
Speaker 2: to go to a better school. Mexico has public schools,
Speaker 2: but the system is more broken than the one in
Speaker 2: the US, and also being in Mexico City made him
Speaker 2: more available for opportunities than if he was in another state.
Speaker 2: Social mobility isn't as accessible in the States as our
Speaker 2: ingrained mythology would suggest either at this point in time,
Speaker 2: but that is also a different podcast. The US can
Speaker 2: mean different things to different Mexicans depending on their income bracket.
Speaker 2: For many people in Mexico, it's a lifeline for a
Speaker 2: better quality of life. For someone like Alex it meant
Speaker 2: luxury in a slice of fantasy.
Speaker 5: I mean I.
Speaker 3: Remember my first time to Disney, and I was like
Speaker 3: six or seven something like that, So I mean it
Speaker 3: was like so impressive and so mind blowing as a
Speaker 3: kid to go and see all that incredible stuff. We
Speaker 3: could not sometimes be able to go so often to
Speaker 3: the US, but some of my friends in this push school,
Speaker 3: they would be going to ski and to Wale and
Speaker 3: to you know, like so many different posh destinies in
Speaker 3: the US.
Speaker 5: But they would be coming.
Speaker 3: With you know, like the big toys and you know,
Speaker 3: like everything that would land and clothing and all that.
Speaker 5: But and I.
Speaker 3: Was raised when I was a kid in it was
Speaker 3: the eighties, so Mexico's economy in Mexico was still very
Speaker 3: like closed, and so going to the US was something
Speaker 3: that was like, yeah, like have some privilege.
Speaker 2: A lot has changed in Mexico and Mexico City since
Speaker 2: the eighties. Many mostly national corporations have made their lot
Speaker 2: and headquarters in Mexico City. Why well, the Mexican government
Speaker 2: is a lot more stable than many of its neighbors.
Speaker 2: They haven't had a dictator in their modern history. The
Speaker 2: currency hasn't fluctuated like it does in Argentina or Venezuela.
Speaker 2: And sure are nartcos, but.
Speaker 4: The cartails don't really venture into Mexico City.
Speaker 2: A big change happened within the last several years. Let's
Speaker 2: call it the rise of the digital nomad. You've heard
Speaker 2: of Mexicans moving to the US, nice storming the border
Speaker 2: if you believe some But have you heard of the
Speaker 2: opposite phenomenon, people fleeing New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Berlin
Speaker 2: for Mexico City. What do you think of the digital
Speaker 2: nomad influx?
Speaker 5: It's I mean, in my opinion, it's good in terms
Speaker 5: of that, yeah, the actual.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all the money that has been put on the
Speaker 3: local economy. It helps, and it's something that right now
Speaker 3: I think it's something super needed. Yeah, and so I
Speaker 3: definitely think that's something that in the long run will help.
Speaker 3: But in the other sense, it's having the gentrification classic
Speaker 3: phenomenon which is now starting to show, and the rents
Speaker 3: are going up, and they are now like tweets and
Speaker 3: memes now saying that, yeah, like the regular Mexican walking
Speaker 3: in Droma or in Condesta, now it feels that we
Speaker 3: are illegal immigrants.
Speaker 2: Digital nomads are a complicated topic for a lot of
Speaker 2: Mexicans living in Mexico City. When I was there, a
Speaker 2: lot of people were honestly pretty happy about the influx
Speaker 2: of foreigners. I think that sentiment has somewhat changed after
Speaker 2: all of my Mexican friends were priced out of living
Speaker 2: in Condesse and Roma. But on the whole, Mexicans tend
Speaker 2: to really love foreigners. It's something that's ingrained into the culture.
Speaker 3: Have you heard about this term Malinchismo, which comes from Malinche.
Speaker 3: So Malinche was a princess that was given to Ernan Cortes,
Speaker 3: who was a conqueror, the Spanish conqueror of the city.
Speaker 3: As an interpret as a translator, but also kind of
Speaker 3: like a maiden. And then they became they were together
Speaker 3: and they had children and Malinche, which is kind of
Speaker 3: like the Spanish way of saying Malitin, who was a
Speaker 3: traditional name, was kind of like the first one, and
Speaker 3: for many people they see her as a traitor, but
Speaker 3: I mean she had she was about to be killed,
Speaker 3: so I don't know if we can judge her, but
Speaker 3: she was like kind of like giving favor to the
Speaker 3: conqueror or anyone. So the term of malin chista or
Speaker 3: malincha is that you kind of like appreciate more things
Speaker 3: from outside your country, and you're kind of like favoring
Speaker 3: the knowledge of other country that is not yours. And
Speaker 3: unfortunately the Mexican people is very Malinchista is like very
Speaker 3: like if you actually come from another country, the Mexican
Speaker 3: will find you exotic.
Speaker 5: But will treat you really well.
Speaker 3: He will treat to you like somehow Yeah, like you
Speaker 3: come to be really interested in your ways, and you're
Speaker 3: interested into in your kind of like very exotic and mother.
Speaker 2: One time Alex took me to a foreigner's party. I
Speaker 2: was like, what's a foreigner's party? And he said it
Speaker 2: was a party for people to show off their foreigners.
Speaker 2: It was wild. I brought moonshine. I was told to
Speaker 2: taste like bad decisions. Here's the other thing when I've
Speaker 2: told a lot of Americans about miley chismo. They tend
Speaker 2: to interpret it as a level of white people. But
Speaker 2: that's not strictly true from what I've seen and what
Speaker 2: I've been told, and it's actually pretty all encompassing. But
Speaker 2: maleon chismo also doesn't apply to everyone. It doesn't apply
Speaker 2: to people that come from countries that produce a lot
Speaker 2: of migrants, like Honduras or a Salvador. It also doesn't
Speaker 2: apply to people who don't look like they should be foreigners.
Speaker 2: So if you look Mexican but are from the US
Speaker 2: and a stranger in the country, you are not going
Speaker 2: to be treated the same way that someone from Japan
Speaker 2: would be. And there doesn't seem to be a big
Speaker 2: alliance between the digital nomads and the people who have returned.
Speaker 2: And while a lot of nomads are American and probably
Speaker 2: have a lot culturally in common with people who have
Speaker 2: returned buying large, these two groups are living very different
Speaker 2: existences in the city. See, the Americans are still earning
Speaker 2: dollars while the returneys are likely earning pesos. And there's
Speaker 2: definitely a difference when you choose to be in a
Speaker 2: place versus when you have to be in a place.
Speaker 2: Although I didn't meet any digital nomads on my first trip,
Speaker 2: I did learn about the tale of two cities andess
Speaker 2: of being a returney versus being an obvious foreigner. On
Speaker 2: that fateful first time in Mexico City. Eventually I wound
Speaker 2: up having a good time. I met someone which prompted
Speaker 2: me to make plans to come back to the city.
Speaker 2: I made friends Sasa museums. I was just coming out
Speaker 2: of my fog of weird self inflicted shame and confusion
Speaker 2: when I was headed to the airport. As I called
Speaker 2: the Uber, I expected that it would be kind of
Speaker 2: a quiet car ride. My brain was half fried and
Speaker 2: I was convinced that I had somehow lost my Spanish
Speaker 2: completely in my week in Mexico City. But when my driver,
Speaker 2: Victor Manuel's car pulled up, he hopped out and greeted
Speaker 2: me in an American accent at English. I was taken aback.
Speaker 2: What was this American doing driving Uber in Mexico City.
Speaker 2: As we got on the highway and promptly got stuck
Speaker 2: in one of Mexico City's famous traffic jams, I asked
Speaker 2: Victor Manuel where he grew up. He told me California,
Speaker 2: but he had been undocumented. In his early twenties, he
Speaker 2: came to the conclusion that his time in the US
Speaker 2: had run its course. He couldn't enroll in college because
Speaker 2: he couldn't pay for it. He was afraid of being
Speaker 2: found out every time he left his house. He didn't
Speaker 2: see any sort of path forward or protection for him
Speaker 2: on the horizon. So Victor Manuel decided he was going
Speaker 2: to disappoint his dad, who had brought him to the
Speaker 2: States when he was a baby, and returned to Mexico
Speaker 2: without speaking so much as a word of Spanish. But
Speaker 2: when he landed in Mexico, he realized how horribly unprepared
Speaker 2: he was for this transition, and more maddeningly, Daca came
Speaker 2: into existence six months after he left the US. When
Speaker 2: Victor Manuel landed, he told me he went to go
Speaker 2: find his family, who lived in Mitro kan, a state
Speaker 2: west of Mexico City. He hadn't had much contact with
Speaker 2: his family since he left, and if I remember correctly,
Speaker 2: none of them spoke English. He didn't speak Spanish, and
Speaker 2: it didn't take him long to realize that he was
Speaker 2: in a narco town. I remember Victor Manuel being very tall,
Speaker 2: especially for Mexico. And heavily tattooed and well, very obviously
Speaker 2: an outsider afraid of getting kidnapped by a cartel. I
Speaker 2: remember him telling me he left Mitro Kan by bus
Speaker 2: under the cover of darkness. He landed in Mexico City
Speaker 2: with no job, no friends or family, and no Spanish,
Speaker 2: as Victor Manuel described as struggles with his identity. As
Speaker 2: a returney to me, I thought to myself, Oh God,
Speaker 2: this is like if I had to come live in Mexico.
Speaker 2: I recognized a lot of those feelings, like way more
Speaker 2: than I thought I would. This changed my life. I
Speaker 2: grew up thinking I had zero things in common identity wise,
Speaker 2: with immigrants from Latin America, that they somehow had it easier.
Speaker 2: And now I was hearing that actually the culture shock
Speaker 2: and pressure and disappointment upon first coming to Mexico, as
Speaker 2: well as the intense imposter syndrome that he felt in
Speaker 2: the States, were really, really similar. I was shocked. For
Speaker 2: my whole life, I had assumed that I was the
Speaker 2: only one who felt this way, that because of my
Speaker 2: unusual situation, I was the sole ambassador from my planet.
Speaker 2: And now not only was I hearing that I weirdly
Speaker 2: wasn't alone. I was also hearing about a predicament that
Speaker 2: I had never even really thought about, what ha happens
Speaker 2: when people return. I'm sure you wanted to hear an
Speaker 2: interview with Victor Manuel instead of hearing me talk about
Speaker 2: our conversation. The truth is I didn't get his contact info,
Speaker 2: and while later I realized I could have probably used
Speaker 2: Uber to contact him, by that point he seemed to
Speaker 2: have left. What set me on the path of doing
Speaker 2: this whole project was trying to find him to be
Speaker 2: able to hear his whole story, to talk to him again.
Speaker 2: But so far I haven't been able to. So Victor,
Speaker 2: if you're out there, hit me up.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and there's one last thing I have to
Speaker 4: tell you.
Speaker 2: First time you met me, did you think you're being catfished?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean, now, obviously it was a shock because, yeah,
Speaker 3: by hearing your name and have no physical description my head.
Speaker 3: In my head, you were looking absolutely different.
Speaker 2: So part of the reason why people have been so
Speaker 2: weird with me over the years is because of how
Speaker 2: I look. When people hear my name, they create this
Speaker 2: image of me in their mind, like they might think
Speaker 2: I look like Selena Gomez or maybe indigenous like Elitia
Speaker 2: Parassio or appro Latina like Zoe Saldana. They don't really
Speaker 2: think Cameron Diaz. So not only do I not have
Speaker 2: a great story, I also look sweedish. That's actually been
Speaker 2: what gives people the most hang ups. Not really Latin
Speaker 2: people per se, but people who are not from a
Speaker 2: Latin background, who, for one reason or another think I'm lying,
Speaker 2: and while I have no ill will towards them, people
Speaker 2: like Hilaria Baldwin and Rachel Doleas all have not helped us.
Speaker 3: Watching That You Are Blue White Blum, it was a
Speaker 3: little bit of a shock, but also I was like, Okay, yes, Mexican.
Speaker 5: Diverse than we are, very diverse.
Speaker 2: I feel like I painted a picture of Mexico City
Speaker 2: that sounds like an amazing wonderland. So you're probably love
Speaker 2: of the question. Did any of the retorneys realize there
Speaker 2: are a lot of opportunities in Mexico and return on
Speaker 2: their own Well, the answer, in short is yes, definitely
Speaker 2: not everyone, but yes.
Speaker 6: We just have this cultural idea that the United States
Speaker 6: is going to be the only place where you can
Speaker 6: better you, right, But that wasn't really.
Speaker 2: Afraid Next time on the United States lists this episode
Speaker 2: was written and produced by Alexander Rivera. Story editing by
Speaker 2: Alexander Rivera and Caitlin Pierce from Roughcut Collective.
Speaker 4: Audio engineering by Francesco Messure.
Speaker 2: Sound designed by Fernando Hernandez Bessera of isis Rado.
Speaker 4: This podcast was done in collaboration with Blue Remedy Media.
Speaker 2: Follow us on Instagram at at United Stateless Podcast for
Speaker 2: more information and opportunities to donate to organizations at Help Attorneys.
Speaker 4: Visit our website at www dot United statelesspodcast dot com