Mexico is often portrayed in U.S. media outlets as a dangerous place to visit, let alone to live, but a closer look reveals the tendency for the media to exaggerate and misrepresent the facts. I have a theory on why but first let's look at the numbers, both real and reported.
Having lived here for 15-years myself I speak from experience, not just theory.
I find it interesting that I still get asked by my friends in the US if it's safe to live here. I've traveled all over the country and all hours of the day and night and have never had a problem with anyone, not even the police.
I have lots of run-ins with Mexican police officers and they always end well. You can read a funny story about that at Gringo Gets Busted In Guadalajara - Once Upon A Time In Mexico --- by @luzcypher
These days, since Trump was elected, my friends started asking me a new question.
"Have Mexicans treated you any differently since Trump became president, knowing you're from the US?"
I'm happy to say, no, not at all. We laugh more now because they think Trump is an idiot and he's the brunt of many jokes We make a lot of jokes about it, but they treat me just as nice as they always have.
Sadly, people in the US are not treating Mexican immigrants with the same respect and kindness. When I took a trip to California last year I had the opportunity to show off my Spanish speaking skills with various groups of Mexican people there. Some construction workers, some people at the farmers market, some neighbors down the street, and they all reported the same thing. People in the US are treating them differently since Trump became president. They seem more closed to building a rapport with them and some have acted outright racist.
Mexico is very welcoming to people from all walks of life, something I always thought the US was famous for. It appears that was a thing in our past and these days Americans are more closed down. I know not all people feel that way, but it does seem to be less open.
In 2017 Mexico posted its highest homicide rate in decades, with the government reporting there were 29,168 murders, higher than the peak year of Mexico's drug war in 2011 when there were 27,213 murders.
The Interior Department, which posted the number, reported the country's homicide rate was 20.5 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2017, compared to 19.4 in 2011.
But Mexico security analyst Alejandro Hope said Mexico's murder rate is probably higher than the Interior Department statistics show, because the department does the per 100,000 counts based on the number of murder investigations, not the number of victims, and a killing may result in more than one victim. Hope says the real homicide rate is probably around 24 per 100,000. Source
But some parts of Mexico were singularly violent: The Pacific coast state of Colima had a rate of 93.6 murders per 100,000 inhabitants; Baja California Sur, home to the resort town of Los Cabos, had a rate of 69.1; and Guerrero, home to the resort town of Acapulco, had a rate of 64.2.
So even in the most violent places in Mexico, it's still about the same rate as Chicago or St Louis. What makes the US feel it can point a finger at how violent Mexico is when even at their worst they are just as violent as the US is?
These are areas where drug cartels resort to violence to settle turf wars so one would expect to see more violent crime there. What the media doesn't report is the violence is usually involving gang members. It's extremely rare to have any effect on someone not involved in that scene. Also, those areas are usually closer to the border of the U.S., places such as Tijuana and Juarez, and don't represent the whole country.
So, unless you are part of a Mexican drug cartel your chances of becoming a victim of violent crime in Mexico are about the same, or less then being a victim in the US, unless you go out of your way to pick a fight with the leader of a drug cartel or act like a drunk idiot looking for trouble, in which case, your odds are still about the same as in the US if you acted like that there.
With a rate of 24 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants as the Mexican national average let's look at the statistics for the U.S.
As you can clearly see, compared to the US, Mexico has a lower homicide rate, but the mainstream media paints an entirely different picture.
I have a theory on why the US media tends to exaggerate the dangers of living or traveling in Mexico. The obvious reason is these kinds of stories that capitalize on people's fear sell well, making more money for the news organizations that push them, but I think it goes beyond that.
The reason is tied to economics.
According to the Population Reference Bureau report, an organization that examines recent trends and disparities among adults ages 65 and older, and how baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 will reshape America’s older population, the number of people between the ages 52 and 70 is expected to double by 2060.
The older population is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse which has created a “diversity gap” between generations.
Older adults are working longer. 23 percent of men and about 15 percent of women ages 65 and older are in the labor force, and these levels are projected to rise further by 2022, to 27 percent for men and 20 percent for women.
The more people in the labor force the more taxes the government collects and as those people age their health costs go up. The US has one of the most expensive health care systems in the world. With the aging population set to double in the next few decades that represents billions of dollars in profits to the healthcare industries.
The average costs of health care in the US in 2018 is rising with no signs of universal health care on the horizon.
Older people are projected to pay 3 times as much in health care costs, as this list indicates. That represents a huge market.
Here's my main point. The quality of health care in Mexico, the closest neighbor to the US along with Canada, is just as good as in the US at a fraction of the cost, but the media would have you believe otherwise.
Mexico is often portrayed as a third-world country with unsafe drinking water and unsanitary conditions when it is, in fact, just as advanced in the medical fields as their US neighbors. Not only is that fact underplayed, but the picture the US media paints is a flat-out deception designed to keep US citizens from even considering they may have less expensive, professional options when it comes to health care.
Let me give you a real example. My friend chipped his front tooth and after shopping around for a dentist in the US to fix it, the best price he could find was $5,000. He came to Mexico and got it done for $54 and the dentist included four teeth cleaning in the deal as well.
I once took a US tourist to the local pharmacy so she could get her prescription filled while she was on vacation. The pills that cost her $250 per month to purchase in the US cost her $5 here in Mexico. This wasn't some generic knockoff, it was the exact same bottle from the same US manufacturers. For the same $3,000 per year she spends on her medication in the US she could, and now does, fly to Mexico round trip, check into an all-inclusive resort for over a week and have a vacation.
Mexico offers free medical healthcare to everyone in the country, even foreigners at no cost, but many people choose to pay the reasonable price of private healthcare. For what it would cost just to talk to a doctor in the US you can pay for many of the most common procedures one would need.
Even if you don't want to live in Mexico, coming here to have medical or dental work done would cost less than equal work done in the United States, so promoting the idea that it is dangerous to travel here and unsanitary and risky to seek medical care works in favor of big pharma and the outrageously over-priced healthcare industries in the US.
There are many more examples to prove ths but you get my point.
For an expat to live in Mexico legally you must be able to show a monthly income of $1,400 or have a savings balance equivalent to at least 5,000 days’ worth of minimum wage (approximately US$23,500) over the past 12 months.
Many people collecting social security make well above the required minimum of $1400 a month needed to live in Mexico legally and could live here at a fraction of the cost of living in the US while still retaining their US citizenship. They would have all the rights and benefits of living in Mexico except the right to vote here. That would require Mexican citizenship as well and if they chose to apply for that to get the right to vote they would still be able to keep their US citizenship.
Many of the baby boomers nearing retirement age will make more than that from social security. With the costs of living and healthcare in the US continuing to rise, it's clear that choosing to live in Mexico would offer a much better standard of living for many people who are retiring, something to seriously consider unless of course, you were too frightened to live in Mexico.
Which brings me back to my point of why the US media exaggerates the violent homicide rate and unsafe conditions of Mexico. Planting the idea that it is unsafe to live in Mexico keeps the aging population from even considering the possibility of seeking a better life in Mexico in their retirement years. It also means huge profits to the healthcare industry and the government of the US.
The truth is, the excellent, affordable health care, great weather, close proximity to the US, and modern day conveniences of living south of the border would provide a more comfortable lifestyle for millions of Americans and save them a small fortune in living costs. Choosing to live in Mexico would allow them to live like kings and afford many of the things they would struggle to afford in the US.
Mexico has everything their northern neighbors have except for huge healthcare costs and Taco Bell. There is no Taco Bell in Mexico because it's an insult to tacos.
Mexico has a popular, national expression that says, Mi casa es tu casa which translates to My house is your house and it's more than just an expression. They really mean it. Nowhere in my vast traveling experience have I felt more welcomed and invited by complete strangers than in Mexico.
If baby boomers started realizing how much better their life could be and how much further their budget would stretch living here, many would start migrating in droves, which brings me to the next lie you've been told and sold on about Mexico. Illegal immigrants entering the US.
I often hear from my friends in the US that if Mexico is so great why are so many Mexicans trying to get into the United States? The truth is they are not trying to immigrate in the numbers reported by the US media.
Mexicans may no longer be the majority of U.S. unauthorized immigrants. They made up half of all unauthorized immigrants in 2016, according to the Center’s preliminary estimate, marking the first time in at least a decade that they did not account for a clear majority of this population. Their numbers (and share of the total) have been declining in recent years: There were 5.6 million Mexican unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in 2015 and 2016, down from 6.4 million in 2009.
Meanwhile, the number of unauthorized immigrants from nations other than Mexico has grown since 2009, from 5 million that year to 5.4 million in 2015. Non-Mexicans numbered 5.7 million in the preliminary 2016 estimate, a total that was not statistically different from 2015. source
When Trump says things like, "They're not sending us our best people.", he's completely mistaken as immigrants are as equally educated as the US population.
What share of the adult foreign-born population is college educated?
In 2016, 30 percent (11.5 million) of the 38.2 million immigrants ages 25 and older had a bachelor's degree or higher, compared to 32 percent of U.S.-born adults. Notably, the share of college-educated immigrants was much higher—47 percent—among those who entered the country in the previous five years (between 2012 and 2016). source
According to the Pew Research Center which analyzes newly available government data from both Mexico and the US, more Mexican immigrants have returned to Mexico from the U.S. than have migrated here since the end of the Great Recession which ended over ten years ago in December 2007.
The same data sources also show the overall flow of Mexican immigrants between the two countries is at its smallest since the 1990s, mostly due to a drop in the number of Mexican immigrants coming to the U.S.
From 2009 to 2014, 1 million Mexicans and their families (including U.S.-born children) left the U.S. for Mexico, according to data from the 2014 Mexican National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (ENADID). U.S. census data for the same period show an estimated 870,000 Mexican nationals left Mexico to come to the U.S., a smaller number than the flow of families from the U.S. to Mexico. source
People often cite stricter deportation laws as the reason so many Mexicans have returned to Mexico, but the same report goes on to say;
A majority of the 1 million who left the U.S. for Mexico between 2009 and 2014 left of their own accord, according to the Mexican government’s ENADID survey data. The Mexican survey also showed that six in ten (61%) returning migrants – those who reported they had been living in the U.S. five years earlier but as of 2014 were back in Mexico – cited family reunification as the main reason for their return. By comparison, 14% of Mexico’s return migrants said the reason for their return was deportation from the U.S
Apparently, Mexicans are beginning to realize that the American dream they heard so much about is closer to a nightmare than a dream and have opted to return to their homeland. The mood here is more of a "live and let live" approach that supports a less stressful lifestyle.
But watching the nightly news in the US you would think the exact opposite is true. What would Americans think if they knew that Mexicans, having come to the United States legally or not, after trying their best to make a go of living here decided to return to their own country?
Why would they want to leave the "greatest country in the world" that American so often professes to be? Perhaps they know life is better somewhere else, like in their own beloved country, Mexico. American is number one for a lot of things, but not what we often think we're best at.
One Is The Loneliest Number - America Is Number One At Things We Shouldn't Brag About --- by @luzcypher
Immigration between the two neighboring countries is often portrayed as a one-way street with Mexicans pouring into the US, but an estimated 1 million American citizens live in Mexico, many of them retirees who head south of the border to enjoy the warm weather, great food and lower cost of living. Unlike the attitude the US has on Mexicans immigrating, Mexico generally welcomes US citizens coming into their country.
So why does the US paint such an unflattering picture about the dangers of Mexico and why do they act so unwelcoming towards Mexicans who immigrate to the US?
If you were the US and wanted to keep your aging population from considering emigrating to Mexico so you could keep your tax base from leaving the country and capitalize on the health care profits of an aging population, the last thing you would want is for people to know that Mexicans are leaving faster than they are immigrating, especially if you're making a concerted effort to portray how dangerous Mexico supposedly is in hopes of scaring your citizens from contemplating such a move.
The media does its best to play both sides of that coin, painting Mexico as dangerous and the US as the place everyone wants to be. Can you see through the illusion?
Hmm, so if Mexicans are not really crossing the border at the rate the media keeps reporting and are, in fact, leaving, why does the US keep talking about spending trillions of dollars to build a wall between the two countries? Could it be to keep American citizens from fleeing the country in search of a more affordable place to live south of the border?
Is this the same country who Republican hero US President Ronald Reagan proudly declared in 1987, "Tear Down That Wall", calling for the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961. Are we really trying to keep people out who seem to be leaving by their own free will or is that rhetoric a decoy to hide a more sinister plan designed to keep people from leaving?
When I talk to my friends in the US about this they used to say, "Well, I love my country. Love it or leave it." For once, I took their advice and haven't regretted a minute of it. I still love the US, but I did leave it and live a better life for making that choice.
I see my friends back home working their asses off and struggling just to survive while my own work-life balance is much more relaxed and wonder when will they ever see through the propaganda. They say they envy me and want to come to visit if they can ever get the time off of work, but the only time they do is when they have a medical emergency they can't afford to pay for and I show them how they can get it done cheaper here. When will they ever learn?
Meanwhile, I can only show them this wonderful lifestyle by being a living example of it and when they are ready to see for themselves I have only one thing to say to them if and when they arrive, "Mi casa es tu casa".
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Great post, Luz! The big takeaway is that the legacy mainstream media is nothing more than a propaganda vessel for the power's that be. The world is all about everyday people - their plight, their might, and their glory. We are all one in the same and should respect one another on the merits of our individual and collective characters. The time has come to cut out the "propaganda middle-men!"
The workings of the propaganda machine has never been more clear to me than since I moved to Mexico. Hearing the reports in the US while living in the places they are reporting about it's clear that things are not the way they are being reported. I've always known that was the case but it's just so damn obvious now.
For example, the swine flu epidemic in Mexico reported only in the US was not an epidemic at all, but the US sure ran with that story even closing all flights to Mexico for 3 weeks. No one else in the world seemed to know a thing about it and when I checked with the hospitals here in Mexico there were 9 known cases in a country of 137 million people, not exactly an epidemic.
That's how evil politics can be. Shutting down flights must have been a political move to achieve some end. They played that out with propaganda. Smh
I'm sure of it. The supposed "swine flu" was announced all over the news moments after Obama left Mexico City from a meeting with the Mexican president. Before his plane touched down in the US it was all over the press, but only in the US. Flights from other parts of the world were still coming in and nobody from those countries heard anything about any flu.
Also, the stock price for the swine flu vaccine which magically appeared only days after the announcement rose 728% overnight. Someone made some money off of that. Then three weeks later the "epidemic" miraculously disappeared.
Poli-tricks for politics
They are still doing it with Trump now too.
So bad
The US may want to learn to love and respect others more... Mexicans, Italians, Africans, etc. We are all humans of the same source and need one another. Nobody is perfect.
Yes, they are a young country with much to learn.
There's a great documentary produced by Michael Moore titled Where to Invade Next that shows all of the great initiatives implemented in countries from around the world. The interesting thing is that all of those initiatives got their inspiration from the US, but the US itself never followed through on their own ideas that would have benefitted the nation. Apparently, the US is more concerned with profiting from the needs of its citizens instead of helping them.
Mexico's take on it is if people need help they should help them regardless of the cost. Free healthcare is one example.
Another is free tow service. If your car breaks down anywhere in the country there is a free tow service called the Green Angels who will do whatever it takes to help you get your car off the road, sometin=mes even repairing the car for you for free. You won't find a single broken down car on the side of the road anywhere in the country. How cool is that?
Very cool indeed!
That's really cool! Mexicans are nice people, they just ain't rich. I might be wrong but, poorer people seem to be nicer on the average.
That's another misconception.
There are poor people, middle class, and rich people in Mexico, just like anywhere else. There are many millionaires living in Mexico and lots of places in my own city that I could not afford.
Alright. So I can say Mexico is as rich as the US?
I don't know about that if you're comparing the two countries, but there are many rich people here. I see people driving around in the same kinds of cars as I see in the US, Mercedes, BMW's, Ferraris, and Porsches, and I've been to people's houses who are definitely not poor. They have maids and servants and drivers and butlers, just like people in the US.
I have also seen many poor people just like in the US too. Not much difference really.
Somebody needs to make a "La Migra" tracker dApp for EOS to help immigrants in the US
Hahahaha!
I want to visit Mexico someday, seems like a nice place. As most places in latinoamérica, we welcome foreigners to our countries without being prejudice and with open minds. You are pointing one very important thing, mass media portrays south-america as a dangerous place, I take the news with a grain of salt because of that and other issues. People nowadays are easily fooled and biased to news outlets without digging the proper info about what's actually happening. Anyways, good day to you @luzcypher.
You should visit Mexico. It's a big country with many different types of places to see.
What country are you from?
Currently living in Venezuela, I lived a for a while in Colombia too. Both are beautiful and misunderstood places, I hope someday soon we will solve our political and economic issues and welcome many visitors from around the world. Viva Mexico cabrones.
Great post! :)
VIva Mexico! :)
Hello and congratulations by the post lucy!
You have a new fan from México.
Cool. I'm in Cancun. Where are you?
Mérida Yucatán do you know it, is beautiful.