“To be a gringo in Mexico,” wrote Ambrose Bierce. “Ah, that is euthanasia. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs.”
Sounds reasonably good. I’ve been going to Mexico since I was 22, when a friend and I hitchhiked from Denver to Guatemala and beyond. At first glance, as I climbed over the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán, I had a vision that I had found my place in the world. A photograph exists of myself on the pyramid, a beatific look on my face.
Since then, like a bad peso, I’ve returned again and again, eventually traipsing through all 32 states, going with friends, by myself, then with my partner, then with my children, and in a few weeks by myself again. I have lived in the country’s many corners, from Merida to Mexico City, from Xalapa to Oaxaca. I studied at the University of Veracruz. There is always more. It’s a big country.
This time, though, things are different. I have taken the arduous and hilarious steps of wrangling with Mexican bureaucracy to become a legal resident. They’re stamping my passport. I’m making it official.
When news reports make it seem that hoards of people are moving to the U.S., I’m moving south, getting a Mexican green card and declaring myself at home there. Why? Bragging rights, primarily. If I were being honest, I’d say mostly it is to go through the fast lane in the airport. Getting residency is the equivalent of Mexican TSA PreCheck. I hate being a tourist, and I want to be able to say I live here. I am especially looking forward to spending all of 2024 in Mexico, bypassing the mental horrors of an election year in the United States.
Some may think my expatriation is a love-it-or-leave-it situation, the rude accusatory phrase hurled at protesters during the Vietnam War. Now, as then, you don’t have to hate being somewhere to leave it. There are many things here to like in Urbana. Like my family. The astounding diversity on the Illinois campus. Multicultural restaurants. But there also are many reasons to leave Champaign-Urbana. Geese, for one.
And guns. I heard gunfire last night while I walked through Crystal Lake Park, and police lights flashing minutes later. Another person was shot while driving down Market Street just last Sunday.
Whenever I travel, whether in Barcelona or San Cristobal de las Casas, people are astonished at the number of guns U.S. citizens have. There is a statue in Mexico City of guns melted down into a peace monument. Sadly, it’s a small monument, but most of the guns that do exist in Mexico come from the U.S. The drug cartels would be impotent without U.S. weaponry.
Another good reason for leaving is February. There’s no excuse for February. They used to call February Black History Month, before we realized there is no distinction between Black history and American history. These days, the monthlong celebration is just to remind us of the undeniable fact of our indivisible unity. I would like nothing more than to think of the founding of the country as the moment Black people set foot here, albeit unwillingly. They built the country, after all. My ancestors sure didn’t. They came (without legal papers) from France at the end of the 19th century.
My arms sport tattoos of a pyramid, Mayan hieroglyphics and an ear of corn. Corn is the link between Illinois and Mexico, our shared identity totem. My America extends across two continents. It’s all my home. I’m just moving back and forth through it as though it were one connected place, which in terms of pure geography, it is.
For me, the borders have melted. If I don’t immediately achieve euthanasia in Mexico, I know from experience that transcendence at least is there for the asking.
P. Gregory Springer has been writing for any and all Champaign-Urbana publications since 1977. He can be reached at
pgregory.springer@gmail.com.
