#americanmigrant

I migrated out of the Midwest of the United States in the fall of 2016. I have been in Mexico since, and have traveled through 2 states and 5 cities. I currently live in Chiapas, in the southernmost part of Mexico. I am often very disappointed when I meet other Americans here because their attitudes are still so negative and prejudice. It’s as if the horrors of Trump winning the US Presidential election hasn’t really changed the American attitude towards the rest of the world. The degrees of the passive racism and microaggressions that I am so familiar with as an American minority seem to be truly unchanged, even when we are in someone else’s country.

One thing that I took note of is that many white American migrants (they prefer to be called expats, but I hate that term) living here in Mexico feel entitled to having Mexico and Mexicans cater to their ways and customs. They believe themselves to be genteel, and any deviation from their ways being catered to is a route of pain and perpetual victim-hood. And when I, as fellow American, try to reason with them about respecting other people’s cultures and customs, I end up having to absorb the tear-soaked outbursts and emotional tirades of white privilege and white fragility. Still - even after all that’s happened and is happening in the United States right now, this is still the case. And then, many of these same people just assume that I would feel the way that they do, because my accent matches theirs. I am shocked at what they are willing to say to me as though there were some kind of unspoken camaraderie between us. But no. I am a POC from the United States, an American minority who was raised within an immigrant community. My outlook doesn’t match theirs. Colorblindness isn’t a convenience I have. But as an American here, I know that I am privileged too. So I don’t engage myself in entitlement tears. I really just can’t.

Living here, I have been able to gain a prospective I would have never been able to gain as a tourist. I have been documenting and blogging my experience. I have written more about American privilege as a migrant in this piece I posted to my blog, American Migrant.