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San Antonio Express-News
2 de marzo de 1997
©1997: Suzanne Cane y Olvera

WHY ONE AMERICAN WON'T GO HOME AGAIN

I cannot count whether it has been four thousand or six thousand times that people have asked me why I have stayed in Mexico for thirty years when going back to the United States would have been so much easier money-wise, convenience-wise, and, frankly, just-about-everything-wise.

I have to admit that it was not an easy decision. As a matter or fact, I don't think it was ever really a decision at all. Many times in the past, usually after a major devaluation or earthquake, I have made mental lists of the pro's and con's. The reasons-to-leave-Mexico of these lists were always much longer: inflation, devaluation, earthquakes (I'm from the so-far earthquake-free New York), the fact that I can take political stands on nothing since I am a foreigner, plus at least fifty et ceteras. The reasons-to-stay side of the balance sheet inevitably boiled down to only two: climate and, although it is embarrassing to confess, inertia. The mere thought of packing up four kids and years and years of material possessions did not exactly inspire me to call the nearest moving company.

With time, as life became more and more difficult in Mexico, quite ironically, it was the reasons-to-stay list that grew. The growth process began with a phone call to my sister who still lives in the northeastern United States, and it went something like this:

"How are things there?" asked my sister. "Should I believe what the papers are saying?" This was during the 1980's when inflation was running at an official 160% and, in the unofficial minds of the population, more likely at over 200%.

"The papers always exaggerate," I replied, remembering back to 1985 when the American media gave the impression that the earthquake had pushed all of Mexico City into a big hole in the ground. "But, yes, it's pretty bad," I was forced to admit.
"So, why don't you come back?" she interrogated for what had to have been the billionth time over the years.

At that point, I realized, as I always eventually did during these conversations, that my complaints would get no sympathy, not the kind I could deal with anyway.
"How are things by you?" I asked in an effort to change the subject.
She took the bait. "Boring," she replied.

With that I added a new item to my list of reasons to say: excitement. Mexico could be accused of many things, but boredom or monotony was not one of them. Simple, everyday things that Americans in the U.S. took for granted, like turning on the evening news, in Mexico could become a great adventure, a challenge to one's economic or mental survival. Indeed, if it was not one thing, it was another. Thus, the list grew.

A couple of years ago, another element was added, and the fact that it had not occurred to me before came as a surprise: family.

A friend and I had taken advantage of Semana Santa (Holy Week) to go to New Orleans. On the mandatory Mississippi River boar ride, we met a woman from New York. After all the usual questions that ex-New Yorkers (not that there really is such a thing) inevitably ask still-New Yorkers, the woman asked about my family: whether my children spoke English, Spanish, etc. She was amazed to hear that I had a twenty-three-year-old son living with me.

"Eighteen and out they go," she declared.

That's how "family" not only made it onto the list but went to the very top of it.

In Mexico City, I teach many American high school seniors. Now as I witness their concern over their college applications, I realize that, once they leave for school back in the States, most of them will never really live with their families again.

It makes me wonder what having children is all about. The first eighteen years of life with a child consists of bottles and diapers, homework, dirt, fights and expense. Then, just as this kid is turning into real people, a person with whom one can share adult experiences and intellectual conversation, the eighteen-year-old goes off to college and then into a life that has a minimum to do with Mom and Dad. Does that make any sense?

Many Americans living here in Mexico fall into the same pattern. I have a number of American friends with Mexican husbands who could not resist the temptation of sending their children off to college in the United States. (There are, by the way, a number of good universities in Mexico City. Some are even recognized in the United States by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.)

Today, these women envy me. After college there, their kids found jobs there and made their lives there. Their mothers now realize that they could have waited for graduate school to send their children off to the States. They would have been gone for a while, but the chances of returning would have been much greater, as would have been the possibility that seeing them would not be an airplane ride away.

My children, those who are not married, still live at home. They are quite independent adults, who live their own lives and just happen to live in the same place as Mom, rather like roommates. They provide adult company and participate in adult conversation, much like the parents of small children often wish their kids could do.

Of course, the nest does eventually empty, but, thanks to Mexican geo-economic reality, when the children do marry, they build their new nests in Mexico City or nearby - and I can see them and my grandchildren a lot more than just for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

I like that.