😱 Drama in Mexico City: Gringo, go home!

We were initially concerned about the Mexico City protests against Americans and gentrification. But this isn't about us

Every time we return to Mexico City, we notice many changes in our neighborhood and beyond. New restaurants and bars. New stores. New construction everywhere, especially new apartment buildings being erected almost overnight in our area. Roadwork. Park updates and other public works. And a lot more.

It's not all positive. Places close, too. Loud new clubs open, ruining weekend nights for the locals. And promising projects silently come to a close without being completed, as we saw with a planned fountain in nearby Jardín Ramón López Velarde.

This makes sense: Mexico City is enormous, vibrant, and alive, and so it's constantly changing. But it still surprises us each time. Sometimes for the good. And sometimes for the bad.

This trip has been notable for a few different reasons. For example, the rainy season has been dramatically worse than usual, with severe, repeated lightning and thunderstorms that our friends here all tell us are unprecedented. But we've been confronted with more troubling issues than the weather on this trip. And each started before we even got here.

Let's start with the so-called gringo protests.

Surely, you've heard the news. Right before we flew here, I was surprised to see Mexico City making headlines everywhere in the U.S., and for all the wrong reasons.

Every news outlet there is, mainstream and otherwise, has reported that protesters in Mexico City are demanding an end to the flood of foreigners into the city and what they claim is the resulting gentrification, especially in neighborhoods like Condesa and Roma Norte. The protesters say they are being priced out of the neighborhoods they grew up in, and we've been treated to videos and photos of protesters with "Gringo go home!" signs who vandalize stores and restaurants, most of which, oddly, are local and not international.

It's a lot more nuanced than that.

Our friend Nadine wrote about this topic recently in her Migrant in Mexico Substack, and I highly recommend you read that for the perspective of an expat who has lived here for many years and did everything right. That is, she became a part of this place rather than try to make this place conform to her previous reality.

We're not as experienced in Mexico City as she is. But we've discussed these protests with everyone we know here. We even planned to attend a protest, but it was so far away--and so far removed from the places international travelers would visit--that doing so just didn't make sense. And that is in its own way instructive. There are protests in Mexico City almost every day, it seems. Why hold a protest in a place that's not impacted by the issue you raise?

Part of the reason is that these protests aren't as big, organized, or widespread as the reports about them claim. Many, maybe most, of the protesters are what the locals describe as professional protesters, people who care about chaos, not the issue at hand. We were told repeatedly that the actual protesters are peaceful, which maps to our understanding of the people here, and a small group. Those who throw rocks at store and restaurant windows are just rabble-rousers and an embarrassment to everyone. We have those kinds of people in the U.S. too, of course.

The first protest was held on July 4, America's Independence Day holiday, and that was, of course, not coincidental. Though the protest is ostensibly about all international visitors and their impact on the city, the U.S. is an obvious, soft target. We're right next door, geographically. We're struggling through a period of political chaos and insanity, hopefully temporary, that makes us look even worse than usual. We are, in short, perceived as a threat. Not as individuals, but as a country.

But on the ground, nothing has changed. We were greeted as we're always greeted, with hugs and excitement by those who know us. We are greeted by everyone we've encountered in this city, literally, with smiles and friendliness. There are no sideways glances or subtle digs, let alone anything more menacing. Some of this is simply the difference between sensational news stories and reality. Some of it is that the crowd that really does hate expats is small. And some of it is just Mexico being Mexico: As a people, the locals are among the friendliest on earth. As always.

Yes, gentrification is real. But it's also nuanced. And I'm not even sure it's fair to say that Roma Norte and Condesa are gentrified, since these communities were literally created by wealthy Chilangos--Mexico City residents--in the early 20th century to escape the deteriorating city center at the time.

This is a story I understand all too well. When my family moved out of Boston and into the suburbs when I was 7 years old, it was specifically to escape the perceived dangers of that city. And my parents did so with the explicit understanding that we would continue to move further from the city if the urbanization spread.

Americans are not directly responsible for rising rents and prices in restaurants and stores. But we are part of a wave of contributing factors that starts with the government and its policies and rests most firmly with the wealthy locals who kicked this off in the first place. There are city and local governments around the world that take steps to protect locals from Airbnb and other predatory international companies, for example. But Mexico City has partnered with Airbnb. Mexico even allowed international visitors to come to this country during the pandemic. This country and this city do nothing but embrace expats and the money they spend here.

Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, is still riding a post-election high, and like our friends here, I'm impressed with her handling of our idiotic president and his baby-pants rantings. But she's playing both sides when it comes to local politics and the protests. She agrees that "gentrification is a phenomenon that needs to be addressed." But she also condemns the protests as "xenophobic displays" and says that Mexico will remain open to the world. In other words, welcoming international visitors works, overall.

We know many people here with food industry and service jobs, and it's always astonished us how far many of them commute each day to and from work. This is problematic for all the obvious reasons, but Mexicans tend to work harder and longer than most Americans. And so these commutes often take place at all hours, in whatever weather, and can involve multi-stage journeys on public transportation. We don't know how they do it. But one thing is clear: Most of them cannot afford to live in the neighborhoods in which they work.

And that's gentrification, of course. It's a universal story that's as old as time, and it's not unique to Mexico City. When Stephanie and I moved from the Boston area in which we raised our children to rural Pennsylvania, money played a major role. And now, several years later, we can't afford to move back to suburban Boston, not that we want to. We definitely couldn't afford to buy our former home, which has escalated in value and is now worth well over one million dollars. This is also gentrification, though you could argue that working from home and having the freedom to live somewhere less expensive, as we do, is a privilege and form of entitlement, too.

If there is a solution to gentrification, I'm unaware of it. Perhaps President Sheinbaum has an answer or will find one. But it's more likely that she will simply ride this out, as she knows that this type of thing happens in Mexico City all the time, that protests will come and go, and that anger will flare and then subside. The rabble-rousers will always move on to the next big problem, not because they care and want to solve problems, but to sow chaos. And eventually, Sheinbaum will be gone.

Meanwhile, we can do our part.

I traveled extensively for work during much of my adult life. When I visited Seattle, as I did several times each year, I always stayed with friends there. This was great for all the right reasons. But I was explicitly aware that, as a big middle-aged white guy at the time, I was always going to impact their lives when I visited. So I tried to minimize that by cleaning up after myself and treating them to dinners out as a thank you for putting up with me.

Put more simply, I treated the friends who hosted me all those years with respect because I love and appreciate them. And this is how Stephanie and I have always approached our presence in Mexico City, especially in our neighborhood in Roma Norte. We are the outsiders here, the visitors. If we want to be a part of this place, and we do, we need to conform to the cultural norms here, learn the language, and respect and appreciate everyone around us. Regardless, the locals have shown us nothing but love. We have been welcomed into this place in ways that still bring us such great joy.

But we are middle-aged white people from America. Maybe older. We take up space. We are clearly not from this country. And we can't just show up here or anywhere else and not impact the place and its people. What we can do is try to minimize that impact as often as possible. We don't speak loudly on the streets or in bars, restaurants, and stores, as we sometimes see other expats do. We follow the rules and the social norms here. We ask questions and try to learn. We just try.

We also understand that the condition that the protesters are railing against is really an issue they have with their country and city, and with the laws and policies that enabled this situation to continue unabated.

This is not about us.

As visitors, we can't help solve this problem. But we do have a choice to make. We can be part of the problem, or we can get out of the way. We can try to be the best expats we can be. And so that’s what we do.

Gringo, go home?

No. We may be gringos, but we're also Chilangos and residents of Mexico who have invested in an apartment and a life here. We are home. And we love this place and its people just like you do.