For Migrants, New Land of Opportunity Is Mexico
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Alberto Vidal
Sep 22, 2013, 5:02:52 PM9/22/13
to Mexicoxxi
Country at a Crossroads
For Migrants, New Land of Opportunity Is Mexico
Andrea Bruce for The New York Times
CULTURE Performing Korean pop music in Mexico
City. At least 12,000 Koreans are said to live in Mexico.
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: September 21, 2013 160 Comments
MEXICO CITY — Mexico, whose economic woes have
pushed millions of people north, is increasingly
becoming an immigrant destination. The country’s
documented foreign-born population nearly doubled
between 2000 and 2010, and officials now say the
pace is accelerating as broad changes in the
global economy create new dynamics of migration.
Country at a Crossroads
Articles in this series will examine whether
Mexico can seize the opportunities offered by an evolving global economy.
Multimedia
Graphic
Migration to Mexico
Connect With Us on Twitter
Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines.
Twitter List: Reporters and Editors
Enlarge This Image
Andrea Bruce for The New York Times
OPPORTUNITY Michael Wyle leading a yoga class at his Mexico City studio.
Enlarge This Image
Andrea Bruce for The New York Times
Martin Leveque and Guillaume Pace, right, both
from France, run a thriving communications business in the capital.
Enlarge This Image
Andrea Bruce for The New York Times
CrossFit, an exercise gym that was started in the
United States, has become widely popular and
lucrative in Mexico City, catering mostly to the foreign-born population.
Rising wages in China and higher transportation
costs have made Mexican manufacturing highly
competitive again, with some projections
suggesting it is already cheaper than China for
many industries serving the American market.
Europe is sputtering, pushing workers away. And
while Mexico’s economy is far from trouble free,
its growth easily outpaced the giants of the
hemisphere — the United States, Canada and Brazil
— in 2011 and 2012, according to International
Monetary Fund data, making the country more
attractive to fortune seekers worldwide.
The new arrivals range in class from executives
to laborers; Mexican officials said Friday that
residency requests had grown by 10 percent since
November, when a new law meant to streamline the
process took effect. And they are coming from nearly everywhere.
Guillaume Pace saw his native France wilting
economically, so with his new degree in finance, he moved to Mexico City.
Lee Hwan-hee made the same move from South
Korea for an internship, while Spanish
filmmakers, Japanese automotive executives and
entrepreneurs from the United States and Latin
America arrive practically daily — pursuing
dreams, living well and frequently succeeding.
“There is this energy here, this feeling that
anything can happen,” said Lesley Téllez, a
Californian whose three-year-old business running
culinary tours served hundreds of clients here
last year. “It’s hard to find that in the U.S.”
The shift with Mexico’s northern neighbor is
especially stark. Americans now make up more than
three-quarters of Mexico’s roughly one million
documented foreigners, up from around two-thirds
in 2000, leading to a historic milestone: more
Americans have been added to the population of
Mexico over the past few years than Mexicans have
been added to the population of the United
States, according to government data in both nations.
Mexican migration to the United States has
reached an equilibrium, with about as many
Mexicans moving north from 2005 to 2010 as those
returning south. The number of Americans legally
living and working in Mexico grew to more than
70,000 in 2012 from 60,000 in 2009, a number that
does not include many students and retirees,
those on tourist visas or the roughly 350,000
American children who have arrived since 2005 with their Mexican parents.
For Discussion
Why did you decide to move to Mexico?
Please share your story in the comments below.
“Mexico is changing; all the numbers point in
that direction,” said Ernesto Rodríguez Chávez,
the former director of migration policy at
Mexico’s Interior Ministry. He added: “There’s
been an opening to the world in every way —
culturally, socially and economically.”
But the effect of that opening varies widely.
Many economists, demographers and Mexican
officials see the growing foreign presence as an
indicator that global trends have been breaking
Mexico’s way — or as President Enrique Peña Nieto
often puts it, “the stars are aligning” — but
there are plenty of obstacles threatening to scuttle Mexico’s moment.
Inequality remains a huge problem, and in many
Mexican states education is still a mess and
criminals rule. Many local companies that could
be benefiting from Mexico’s rise also remain
isolated from the export economy and its
benefits, with credit hard to come by and little
confidence that the country’s window of
opportunity will stay open for long. Indeed, over
the past year, as projections for growth have
been trimmed by Mexico’s central bank, it has
become increasingly clear to officials and
experts that the country cannot expect its new
competitiveness to single-handedly move it forward.
“The fact that there is a Mexican moment does
not mean by itself it’s going to change our
future,” said Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal,
Mexico’s economy minister. “We have to take
advantage of the Mexican moment to do what is
required of us.” The challenge, he said, is
making sure that the growing interest in his
country benefits all Mexicans, not just
newcomers, investors and a privileged few.
Mexico has failed to live up to its economic
potential before. “They really blew a moment in
1994 when their currency was at rock bottom and
they’d just signed Nafta,” said Kevin P.
Gallagher, a professor of international relations
at Boston University, adding that those
conditions created a big opportunity for Mexican exports.
But now, he and others contend, Mexico has
another shot. If the country of 112 million
people can harness the energy of foreigners and
newly educated Mexicans, become partners with the
slew of American firms seeking alternatives to
China, and get them to do more than just hire
cheap labor, economists and officials say Mexico
could finally become a more equal partner for the
United States and the first-world country its
presidents have promised for decades.
“This is their second chance,” Professor
Gallagher said. “And this time, they really have to capitalize on it.”
Protection to Openness
For most the 20th century, Mexico kept the
world at arm’s length. The 1917 Constitution
guaranteed Mexicans would be given priority over
foreigners for various jobs, and until the 1980s
the country favored policies that protected domestic industry from imports.
Mexico was never totally closed — midcentury
wars in Europe and the Middle East sent ripples
of immigrants to Mexico, while Americans and
Central Americans have always maintained a
presence. But it was not a country that welcomed
outsiders; the Constitution even prohibited
non-Mexicans from directly owning land within 31
miles of the coast and 62 miles of the nation’s borders.
Attitudes began to soften, however, as Mexico’s
relationship with the United States began to
change. Many economists and social scientists say
that closer ties with Mexico’s beloved and hated
neighbor to the north, through immigration and
trade, have made many Mexicans feel less insular.
Millions of emigrants send money earned abroad to
relatives in Mexico, who then rush out to Costco
for more affordable food and electronics. Even
the national soccer team, after decades of
resistance, now includes two Argentine-born midfielders.
“It’s a new era in terms of our perspective,”
said Francisco Alba Hernández, a scholar at the
Colegio de México’s Center for the Study of Urban
and Environmental Demographics. “We are now more
certain about the value of sharing certain things.”
Like immigrants the world over, many of
Mexico’s newcomers are landing where earlier
arrivals can be found. Some of the growth is
appearing in border towns where foreign companies
and binational families are common. American
retirees are showing up in new developments from
San Miguel de Allende to other sunny spots around
Cancún and Puerto Vallarta. Government figures
show that more Canadians are also joining their ranks.
But the most significant changes can be found
in central Mexico. More and more American
consultants helping businesses move production
from China are crisscrossing the region from San
Luis Potosí to Guadalajara, where Silicon Valley
veterans like Andy Kieffer, the founder of Agave
Lab, are developing smartphone applications and
financing new start-ups. In Guanajuato, Germans
are moving in and car-pooling with Mexicans
heading to a new Volkswagen factory that opened a
year ago, and sushi can now be found at hotel
breakfasts because of all the Japanese executives
preparing for a new Honda plant opening nearby.
Here in the capital, too, immigrants are
becoming a larger proportion of the population
and a growing part of the economy and culture,
opening new restaurants, designing new buildings,
financing new cultural offerings and filling a
number of schools with their children. Economics
has been the primary motivator for members of all
classes: laborers from Central America;
middle-class migrants like Manuel Sánchez, who
moved here from Venezuela two years ago and found
a job selling hair products within 15 days of his
arrival; and the global crème de la crème in
finance and technology, like Mr. Pace, 26, whose
first job in Mexico was with a major French bank
just after graduating from the University of Reims.
Mr. Pace, bearded and as slim as a Gauloises,
said he moved to Mexico in 2011 because college
graduates in France were struggling to find work.
He has stayed here, he said, because the
affordable quality of life beats living in Europe
— and because Mexico offers more opportunity for entrepreneurship.
Sitting at a Belgian cafe with a laptop this
spring, speaking Spanish with a lilt, he said he
recently opened a communications business that
was off to a blazing start. One of his partners
was French, the other Mexican, and in their first
few months of operation, they got more than 30
clients, including VivaAerobus, a discount
airline aimed at Mexico’s emerging middle class.
More recently, as Mexico’s economy has slowed,
Mr. Pace said a few clients had canceled planned
promotions, but over all his business has grown
this year to include work for international
brands like Doritos and the beer Dos Equis.
“We’re not going back to France,” Mr. Pace
said. “The business is doing well and we’re very happy in Mexico.”
Some Mexicans and foreigners say Europeans are
given special treatment because they are
perceived to be of a higher class, a legacy of
colonialism when lighter skin led to greater
privileges. But like many other entrepreneurs
from foreign lands, Mr. Pace and his partners are
both benefiting from and helping to shape how
Mexico works. Mr. Rodríguez, the former Interior
Ministry official, Cuban by birth, said that
foreigners had helped make Mexico City more socially liberal.
And with so many Mexicans working in the
informal economy, foreigners have little trouble
starting new ventures. Many immigrants say Mexico
is attractive because it feels disorderly, like a
work in progress, with the blueprints of success,
hierarchy and legality still being drawn. “Not
everyone follows the rules here, so if you really
want to make something happen you can make it
happen,” said Ms. Téllez, 34, whose food business
served more than 500 visitors last year. “No one
is going to fault you for not following all the rules.”
Mr. Lee said that compared with South Korea,
where career options were limited by test scores
and universities attended, Mexico allowed for
more rapid advancement. As an intern at the Korea
Trade-Investment Promotion Agency here, he said
he learned up close how Samsung and other Korean
exporters worked. “Here,” he said, “the doors are
more open for all Koreans.” He added that among
his friends back home, learning Spanish was now
second only to learning English.
The results of that interest are becoming
increasingly clear. There were 10 times as many
Koreans living in Mexico in 2010 as in 2000.
Officials at a newly opened Korean cultural
center here say at least 12,000 Koreans now call
Mexico home, and young Mexicans in particular are
welcoming them with open arms: there are now 70
fan clubs for Korean pop music in Mexico, with at least 60,000 members.
A Creative Magnet
Europe, dying; Mexico, coming to life. The
United States, closed and materialistic; Mexico,
open and creative. Perceptions are what drive
migration worldwide, and in interviews with
dozens of new arrivals to Mexico City — including
architects, artists and entrepreneurs — it became
clear that the country’s attractiveness extended beyond economics.
Artists like Marc Vigil, a well-known Spanish
television director who moved to Mexico City in
October, said that compared with Spain, Mexico
was teeming with life and an eagerness to
experiment. Like India in relation to England,
Mexico has an audience that is larger and younger
than the population of its former colonial
overlord. Mr. Vigil said that allowed for clever
programming, adding that he already had several
projects in the final stages of negotiation.
“In Spain, everything is a problem,” he said.
“Here in Mexico, everything is possible. There is
more work and in the attitude here, there is more
of a spirit of struggle and creativity.”
Diego Quemada-Díez, another Spanish director
who said he was the first person in his family to
leave Spain since at least the 1400s, moved to
Mexico in 2008 after working as a camera operator
in Hollywood. He went to film school at the
American Film Institute and completed a short
film that won several awards, but he said he
moved to Mexico because the United States had
become creatively restrictive. He wanted to make
a film without famous actors, about Central
American immigrants. In Los Angeles, no producers
would bite. Here, the government provided more
than $1 million in financing. The film, La Jaula
de Oro, had its premiere at Cannes this year,
with its young actors winning an award.
“Europe feels spiritually dead and so does the
United States,” Mr. Quemada-Díez said. “You end up wanting something else.”
He struggled to make sense of Mexico at first.
Many foreigners do, complaining that the country
is still a place of paradox, delays and promises
never fulfilled for reasons never explained — a
cultural clash that affects business of all
kinds. “In California, there was one layer of
subtext,” Mr. Quemada-Díez said. “Here there are 40 layers.”
Mexico’s immigrant population is still
relatively small. Some officials estimate that
four million foreigners have lived in Mexico over
the past few years, but the 2010 census counted
about one million, making around 1 percent of the
country foreign-born compared with 13 percent in
the United States. Many Mexicans, especially
among the poor, see foreigners as novel and unfamiliar invaders.
Race, ethnicity and nationality matter. Most of
the immigrants who have the resources or
corporate sponsorship to gain legal residency
here come from the United States and Europe. The
thousands of Central American immigrants coming
to Mexico without visas — to work on farms or in
cities, or to get to the United States — are
often greeted with beatings by the Mexican police
or intense pressure to work for drug cartels.
Koreans also say they often hear the xenophobic
refrain, “Go back to your own country.”
Mr. Sánchez, the hair products salesman from
Venezuela, said Mexicans who had not been able to
rise above their economic class mostly seemed to
resent the mobility of immigrants. In a country
still scarred by the Spanish conquistadors, he
said many of his Mexican neighbors responded with
shock when they discovered that his younger
sister was studying medicine at Mexico’s national
university. Not that the quiet scorn is enough to
deter him. “I earn more here in a year than I
would in 10 years in my own country,” he said.
“Mexicans don’t realize how great their country is.”
Many do, of course, especially those with
experience elsewhere. Mexico has allowed dual
nationality for more than a decade, and among the
growing group of foreigners moving here are also
young men and women born in Mexico to foreign
parents, or who grew up abroad as the children of
Mexicans. A globalized generation, they could
live just about anywhere, but they are increasingly choosing Mexico.
Some are passionate idealists, like Luna
Mancini, 27, a human rights lawyer working for
the Supreme Court who was born in Mexico to
Italian parents. After growing up in Barcelona,
Spain, she returned to Mexico in 2009 because she
felt that more could be done in Latin America,
with law and with new tools of communication —
digital video, social media — that encouraged
grass-roots dialogue. Some, especially
Mexican-Americans working in Mexico City’s hip
culinary scene, have come here to reconnect with
their roots. Others simply see Mexico as their
best option, as an incubator for personal, professional and artistic growth.
Domingo Delaroiere, an architect whose father
is French and mother is Mexican, said Mexico’s
appeal — especially in the capital — was becoming
harder to miss. When he came back here last year
for a visit, after two and a half years in Paris,
he said he was surprised. “Art, culture, fashion,
architecture, design — the city was filling up
with new spaces, things that are interesting, daring,” he said.
He soon decided it was time to move. Compared
with Mexico, he said, “Nothing is happening in Paris.”
A version of this article appears in print on
September 22, 2013, on page A1 of the New York
edition with the headline: For Migrants, New Land of Opportunity Is Mexico.
For Migrants, New Land of Opportunity Is Mexico
Andrea Bruce for The New York Times
CULTURE Performing Korean pop music in Mexico
City. At least 12,000 Koreans are said to live in Mexico.
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: September 21, 2013 160 Comments
MEXICO CITY — Mexico, whose economic woes have
pushed millions of people north, is increasingly
becoming an immigrant destination. The country’s
documented foreign-born population nearly doubled
between 2000 and 2010, and officials now say the
pace is accelerating as broad changes in the
global economy create new dynamics of migration.
Country at a Crossroads
Articles in this series will examine whether
Mexico can seize the opportunities offered by an evolving global economy.
Multimedia
Graphic
Migration to Mexico
Connect With Us on Twitter
Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines.
Twitter List: Reporters and Editors
Enlarge This Image
Andrea Bruce for The New York Times
OPPORTUNITY Michael Wyle leading a yoga class at his Mexico City studio.
Enlarge This Image
Andrea Bruce for The New York Times
Martin Leveque and Guillaume Pace, right, both
from France, run a thriving communications business in the capital.
Enlarge This Image
Andrea Bruce for The New York Times
CrossFit, an exercise gym that was started in the
United States, has become widely popular and
lucrative in Mexico City, catering mostly to the foreign-born population.
Rising wages in China and higher transportation
costs have made Mexican manufacturing highly
competitive again, with some projections
suggesting it is already cheaper than China for
many industries serving the American market.
Europe is sputtering, pushing workers away. And
while Mexico’s economy is far from trouble free,
its growth easily outpaced the giants of the
hemisphere — the United States, Canada and Brazil
— in 2011 and 2012, according to International
Monetary Fund data, making the country more
attractive to fortune seekers worldwide.
The new arrivals range in class from executives
to laborers; Mexican officials said Friday that
residency requests had grown by 10 percent since
November, when a new law meant to streamline the
process took effect. And they are coming from nearly everywhere.
Guillaume Pace saw his native France wilting
economically, so with his new degree in finance, he moved to Mexico City.
Lee Hwan-hee made the same move from South
Korea for an internship, while Spanish
filmmakers, Japanese automotive executives and
entrepreneurs from the United States and Latin
America arrive practically daily — pursuing
dreams, living well and frequently succeeding.
“There is this energy here, this feeling that
anything can happen,” said Lesley Téllez, a
Californian whose three-year-old business running
culinary tours served hundreds of clients here
last year. “It’s hard to find that in the U.S.”
The shift with Mexico’s northern neighbor is
especially stark. Americans now make up more than
three-quarters of Mexico’s roughly one million
documented foreigners, up from around two-thirds
in 2000, leading to a historic milestone: more
Americans have been added to the population of
Mexico over the past few years than Mexicans have
been added to the population of the United
States, according to government data in both nations.
Mexican migration to the United States has
reached an equilibrium, with about as many
Mexicans moving north from 2005 to 2010 as those
returning south. The number of Americans legally
living and working in Mexico grew to more than
70,000 in 2012 from 60,000 in 2009, a number that
does not include many students and retirees,
those on tourist visas or the roughly 350,000
American children who have arrived since 2005 with their Mexican parents.
For Discussion
Why did you decide to move to Mexico?
Please share your story in the comments below.
“Mexico is changing; all the numbers point in
that direction,” said Ernesto Rodríguez Chávez,
the former director of migration policy at
Mexico’s Interior Ministry. He added: “There’s
been an opening to the world in every way —
culturally, socially and economically.”
But the effect of that opening varies widely.
Many economists, demographers and Mexican
officials see the growing foreign presence as an
indicator that global trends have been breaking
Mexico’s way — or as President Enrique Peña Nieto
often puts it, “the stars are aligning” — but
there are plenty of obstacles threatening to scuttle Mexico’s moment.
Inequality remains a huge problem, and in many
Mexican states education is still a mess and
criminals rule. Many local companies that could
be benefiting from Mexico’s rise also remain
isolated from the export economy and its
benefits, with credit hard to come by and little
confidence that the country’s window of
opportunity will stay open for long. Indeed, over
the past year, as projections for growth have
been trimmed by Mexico’s central bank, it has
become increasingly clear to officials and
experts that the country cannot expect its new
competitiveness to single-handedly move it forward.
“The fact that there is a Mexican moment does
not mean by itself it’s going to change our
future,” said Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal,
Mexico’s economy minister. “We have to take
advantage of the Mexican moment to do what is
required of us.” The challenge, he said, is
making sure that the growing interest in his
country benefits all Mexicans, not just
newcomers, investors and a privileged few.
Mexico has failed to live up to its economic
potential before. “They really blew a moment in
1994 when their currency was at rock bottom and
they’d just signed Nafta,” said Kevin P.
Gallagher, a professor of international relations
at Boston University, adding that those
conditions created a big opportunity for Mexican exports.
But now, he and others contend, Mexico has
another shot. If the country of 112 million
people can harness the energy of foreigners and
newly educated Mexicans, become partners with the
slew of American firms seeking alternatives to
China, and get them to do more than just hire
cheap labor, economists and officials say Mexico
could finally become a more equal partner for the
United States and the first-world country its
presidents have promised for decades.
“This is their second chance,” Professor
Gallagher said. “And this time, they really have to capitalize on it.”
Protection to Openness
For most the 20th century, Mexico kept the
world at arm’s length. The 1917 Constitution
guaranteed Mexicans would be given priority over
foreigners for various jobs, and until the 1980s
the country favored policies that protected domestic industry from imports.
Mexico was never totally closed — midcentury
wars in Europe and the Middle East sent ripples
of immigrants to Mexico, while Americans and
Central Americans have always maintained a
presence. But it was not a country that welcomed
outsiders; the Constitution even prohibited
non-Mexicans from directly owning land within 31
miles of the coast and 62 miles of the nation’s borders.
Attitudes began to soften, however, as Mexico’s
relationship with the United States began to
change. Many economists and social scientists say
that closer ties with Mexico’s beloved and hated
neighbor to the north, through immigration and
trade, have made many Mexicans feel less insular.
Millions of emigrants send money earned abroad to
relatives in Mexico, who then rush out to Costco
for more affordable food and electronics. Even
the national soccer team, after decades of
resistance, now includes two Argentine-born midfielders.
“It’s a new era in terms of our perspective,”
said Francisco Alba Hernández, a scholar at the
Colegio de México’s Center for the Study of Urban
and Environmental Demographics. “We are now more
certain about the value of sharing certain things.”
Like immigrants the world over, many of
Mexico’s newcomers are landing where earlier
arrivals can be found. Some of the growth is
appearing in border towns where foreign companies
and binational families are common. American
retirees are showing up in new developments from
San Miguel de Allende to other sunny spots around
Cancún and Puerto Vallarta. Government figures
show that more Canadians are also joining their ranks.
But the most significant changes can be found
in central Mexico. More and more American
consultants helping businesses move production
from China are crisscrossing the region from San
Luis Potosí to Guadalajara, where Silicon Valley
veterans like Andy Kieffer, the founder of Agave
Lab, are developing smartphone applications and
financing new start-ups. In Guanajuato, Germans
are moving in and car-pooling with Mexicans
heading to a new Volkswagen factory that opened a
year ago, and sushi can now be found at hotel
breakfasts because of all the Japanese executives
preparing for a new Honda plant opening nearby.
Here in the capital, too, immigrants are
becoming a larger proportion of the population
and a growing part of the economy and culture,
opening new restaurants, designing new buildings,
financing new cultural offerings and filling a
number of schools with their children. Economics
has been the primary motivator for members of all
classes: laborers from Central America;
middle-class migrants like Manuel Sánchez, who
moved here from Venezuela two years ago and found
a job selling hair products within 15 days of his
arrival; and the global crème de la crème in
finance and technology, like Mr. Pace, 26, whose
first job in Mexico was with a major French bank
just after graduating from the University of Reims.
Mr. Pace, bearded and as slim as a Gauloises,
said he moved to Mexico in 2011 because college
graduates in France were struggling to find work.
He has stayed here, he said, because the
affordable quality of life beats living in Europe
— and because Mexico offers more opportunity for entrepreneurship.
Sitting at a Belgian cafe with a laptop this
spring, speaking Spanish with a lilt, he said he
recently opened a communications business that
was off to a blazing start. One of his partners
was French, the other Mexican, and in their first
few months of operation, they got more than 30
clients, including VivaAerobus, a discount
airline aimed at Mexico’s emerging middle class.
More recently, as Mexico’s economy has slowed,
Mr. Pace said a few clients had canceled planned
promotions, but over all his business has grown
this year to include work for international
brands like Doritos and the beer Dos Equis.
“We’re not going back to France,” Mr. Pace
said. “The business is doing well and we’re very happy in Mexico.”
Some Mexicans and foreigners say Europeans are
given special treatment because they are
perceived to be of a higher class, a legacy of
colonialism when lighter skin led to greater
privileges. But like many other entrepreneurs
from foreign lands, Mr. Pace and his partners are
both benefiting from and helping to shape how
Mexico works. Mr. Rodríguez, the former Interior
Ministry official, Cuban by birth, said that
foreigners had helped make Mexico City more socially liberal.
And with so many Mexicans working in the
informal economy, foreigners have little trouble
starting new ventures. Many immigrants say Mexico
is attractive because it feels disorderly, like a
work in progress, with the blueprints of success,
hierarchy and legality still being drawn. “Not
everyone follows the rules here, so if you really
want to make something happen you can make it
happen,” said Ms. Téllez, 34, whose food business
served more than 500 visitors last year. “No one
is going to fault you for not following all the rules.”
Mr. Lee said that compared with South Korea,
where career options were limited by test scores
and universities attended, Mexico allowed for
more rapid advancement. As an intern at the Korea
Trade-Investment Promotion Agency here, he said
he learned up close how Samsung and other Korean
exporters worked. “Here,” he said, “the doors are
more open for all Koreans.” He added that among
his friends back home, learning Spanish was now
second only to learning English.
The results of that interest are becoming
increasingly clear. There were 10 times as many
Koreans living in Mexico in 2010 as in 2000.
Officials at a newly opened Korean cultural
center here say at least 12,000 Koreans now call
Mexico home, and young Mexicans in particular are
welcoming them with open arms: there are now 70
fan clubs for Korean pop music in Mexico, with at least 60,000 members.
A Creative Magnet
Europe, dying; Mexico, coming to life. The
United States, closed and materialistic; Mexico,
open and creative. Perceptions are what drive
migration worldwide, and in interviews with
dozens of new arrivals to Mexico City — including
architects, artists and entrepreneurs — it became
clear that the country’s attractiveness extended beyond economics.
Artists like Marc Vigil, a well-known Spanish
television director who moved to Mexico City in
October, said that compared with Spain, Mexico
was teeming with life and an eagerness to
experiment. Like India in relation to England,
Mexico has an audience that is larger and younger
than the population of its former colonial
overlord. Mr. Vigil said that allowed for clever
programming, adding that he already had several
projects in the final stages of negotiation.
“In Spain, everything is a problem,” he said.
“Here in Mexico, everything is possible. There is
more work and in the attitude here, there is more
of a spirit of struggle and creativity.”
Diego Quemada-Díez, another Spanish director
who said he was the first person in his family to
leave Spain since at least the 1400s, moved to
Mexico in 2008 after working as a camera operator
in Hollywood. He went to film school at the
American Film Institute and completed a short
film that won several awards, but he said he
moved to Mexico because the United States had
become creatively restrictive. He wanted to make
a film without famous actors, about Central
American immigrants. In Los Angeles, no producers
would bite. Here, the government provided more
than $1 million in financing. The film, La Jaula
de Oro, had its premiere at Cannes this year,
with its young actors winning an award.
“Europe feels spiritually dead and so does the
United States,” Mr. Quemada-Díez said. “You end up wanting something else.”
He struggled to make sense of Mexico at first.
Many foreigners do, complaining that the country
is still a place of paradox, delays and promises
never fulfilled for reasons never explained — a
cultural clash that affects business of all
kinds. “In California, there was one layer of
subtext,” Mr. Quemada-Díez said. “Here there are 40 layers.”
Mexico’s immigrant population is still
relatively small. Some officials estimate that
four million foreigners have lived in Mexico over
the past few years, but the 2010 census counted
about one million, making around 1 percent of the
country foreign-born compared with 13 percent in
the United States. Many Mexicans, especially
among the poor, see foreigners as novel and unfamiliar invaders.
Race, ethnicity and nationality matter. Most of
the immigrants who have the resources or
corporate sponsorship to gain legal residency
here come from the United States and Europe. The
thousands of Central American immigrants coming
to Mexico without visas — to work on farms or in
cities, or to get to the United States — are
often greeted with beatings by the Mexican police
or intense pressure to work for drug cartels.
Koreans also say they often hear the xenophobic
refrain, “Go back to your own country.”
Mr. Sánchez, the hair products salesman from
Venezuela, said Mexicans who had not been able to
rise above their economic class mostly seemed to
resent the mobility of immigrants. In a country
still scarred by the Spanish conquistadors, he
said many of his Mexican neighbors responded with
shock when they discovered that his younger
sister was studying medicine at Mexico’s national
university. Not that the quiet scorn is enough to
deter him. “I earn more here in a year than I
would in 10 years in my own country,” he said.
“Mexicans don’t realize how great their country is.”
Many do, of course, especially those with
experience elsewhere. Mexico has allowed dual
nationality for more than a decade, and among the
growing group of foreigners moving here are also
young men and women born in Mexico to foreign
parents, or who grew up abroad as the children of
Mexicans. A globalized generation, they could
live just about anywhere, but they are increasingly choosing Mexico.
Some are passionate idealists, like Luna
Mancini, 27, a human rights lawyer working for
the Supreme Court who was born in Mexico to
Italian parents. After growing up in Barcelona,
Spain, she returned to Mexico in 2009 because she
felt that more could be done in Latin America,
with law and with new tools of communication —
digital video, social media — that encouraged
grass-roots dialogue. Some, especially
Mexican-Americans working in Mexico City’s hip
culinary scene, have come here to reconnect with
their roots. Others simply see Mexico as their
best option, as an incubator for personal, professional and artistic growth.
Domingo Delaroiere, an architect whose father
is French and mother is Mexican, said Mexico’s
appeal — especially in the capital — was becoming
harder to miss. When he came back here last year
for a visit, after two and a half years in Paris,
he said he was surprised. “Art, culture, fashion,
architecture, design — the city was filling up
with new spaces, things that are interesting, daring,” he said.
He soon decided it was time to move. Compared
with Mexico, he said, “Nothing is happening in Paris.”
A version of this article appears in print on
September 22, 2013, on page A1 of the New York
edition with the headline: For Migrants, New Land of Opportunity Is Mexico.
Jose Rodriguez-Sanchez
Sep 23, 2013, 2:08:12 PM9/23/13
to mexicoxxi
Bogus Trend of the Day
Hace ya varios a~nos el buen Jack Shafer en slate.com frecuentemente le dedicaba una de sus columnas a lo que llamaba "Bogus Trend of the Day".
En el texto, Shafer alegre y minuciosamente demostraba como en los diarios de por acá ocurrencias puramente anecdoticas eran elevadas al rango de "tendencia" sin tenerHace ya varios a~nos el buen Jack Shafer en slate.com frecuentemente le dedicaba una de sus columnas a lo que llamaba "Bogus Trend of the Day".
este "reportaje" sobre Mexico en la primera plana del NYT. Sin duda otro "Bogus Trends of the Day" que se merece un lugar con otros del pasado tales como: criminales con
gorras de los Yankees, adolescentes construyendo bombas, y la supuesta nueva afición de los hombres por los gatos.
un abrazo
jose.r-s
jose.r-s
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un abrazo
jose.r-s
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