Mexican Living: Solving the Ugly American Syndrome

We, and who I mean by we are those who moved to Mexico to spend the rest of our lives sincerely absorbing the culture and language, have to got to come up with a solution to the Ugly American Syndrome.

I think I have—at least partially.

If you have been reading my columns (and hopefully memorizing them), you know that I've been reporting the Ugly American Syndrome is alive and well in the expat communities in Mexico.

You see it as well in many of the tourist and students who come here. They come to Mexico with huge chips of their little psychopathologies on their shoulders daring any Mexican to knock them off. They expect nothing less than to be waited on hand and foot and to have their every need anticipated and met.

In short, Americans generally run all over this country acting as though Mexico's very existence is to serve them. They are doing it because they believe their American dollar earns them the right to do so. They act out like children.

What has bothered me for the longest time in my constant observation of the gringo behavior is this,

"Why do they bother to spend the hefty sums of money they do to come here if they are going to act so unhappy—like depressed, spoiled children?" (Some of my Mexican neighbors have even asked me this.)

Ok, here is the partial solution I've come up with: "They act like this, when they come to Mexico, because this is how they act all the time no matter where they are!"

No matter what country they are in, they are simply being themselves. Let me explain.

I wrote an op-ed piece a while ago called, The Liberal Solution: Assault a Conservative. In that piece, I reported on two incidents involving two conservative speakers in which they were physically assaulted while speaking onstage to a hostile liberal audience. I asked, in that piece, whether this would be what we could come to expect of a liberal's ability to deal with a cogent argument. If you don't like what you hear then commit assault and battery on the speaker.

Well, low and behold, I guess I was prophetic. This behavior has escalated and reoccurred recently with conservative pundit Ann Coulter. You may have heard of it on Fox News. [1]

Whatever you think about Ann Coulter and her conservative position on ANYTHING, the woman should be able to speak (isn't that what free speech is about?) without the fear of having some thug college student rushing the stage and attacking her with a pie. He missed her, thank God.

Here is my point: Americans act like jackasses at home as well as abroad. Believers in free speech and tolerance apparently will now physically attack those with whom they disagree. If they act like this "at home," why should we expect any better behavior when they move to another country? And indeed, you do not see better behavior!

It is no surprise when these conservative-attacking liberals come to Mexico they act the same way they do at home in America. Oops. Was that a generalization?

I think not.

When we vacationed in Puerto Vallarta, with an unbelievably large liberal expat community, we weren't sure we would get out of there in one piece. Never had I heard such vitriolic pontification about the President of the United States or anything remotely Republican. There was bitter hatred spewing faster than the booze they were guzzling.

These were the liberal grandparents and the mommies and daddies of the miscreant conservative-attacking college students back in America.

The Ugly American expat, tourist, or college student is just being himself or herself. They act like an Ugly American abroad because it is how they act when "at home."

Now "we" have to figure out what to do with them!

[1] The Pie-Proof Ann Coulter on Hecklers;
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155550,00.html

Doug Bower is a freelance writer and book author. His most recent writing credits include The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Houston Chronicle, and The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Transitions Abroad. He lives with his wife in Guanajuato, Mexico.

His new book, Mexican Living: Blogging it from a Third World Country, can be seen at http://www.lulu.com/content/126241