West Pittston, PA — July 2022
✦ Part 1 ✦
What made us decide to move to Mexico?
Short answer: American life. More specifically, American racism.
No, it wasn’t because we were being routinely discriminated against or because we were suffering under the oppression of institutionalized racism in banking, schools, commerce, real estate, and other business arenas. Sadly, for my husband and I, as black people in the United States of America, we had lived with these things as our reality for so long, racism became like background noise to us. It’s like a television or radio playing in a room without an audience. Even if the volume stays on low, it’s always there, like the soundtrack to a movie.
Please note: these truths about why we left America don’t mean we hate America or we’re anti-American. America will always be our original home. These are just some of the facts of our life, how things turned out for us.
What made us decide to move to Mexico?
Longer answer:
We were living in northeastern Pennsylvania, a largely rural area, populated by mostly white families. I had moved there as a single mother back in 2003 so that my two young daughters at the time could have access to a well-resourced school system. Howard and I met and married later that same year.
A few years after the nest emptied—both daughters had moved away, into their own lives and respective careers—we started wondering aloud about what we wanted to do next. We had talked about selling our house and moving elsewhere a few times during the previous decade. But we didn’t know where we wanted to live. We just knew we didn’t want to shovel any more snow. We also knew we didn’t like living in Pennsylvania anymore.
There were isolated incidents that upset us over the years. What kind of incidents? They were the usual garden variety of human dramas, sometimes involving politics or family ties or work life, or community members. The incidents were adding up and layering on top of each other.
The incidents weren’t new. We didn’t live in a cave. Life comes with incidents, incidents which can easily spark any number of dramatic episodes. The types of dramas changed and the individuals changed, but Howard and I were always right there, at the center of the rotating stories.
We were aging and beginning to feel the subtle impacts of the aging process. Less patience. Especially less patience for fuckery. Thinner skin, more sensitive. Or maybe as humans, we’re all sensitive but we suck it up and develop thicker skin because life demands this of us. One of the many rules of adult living.
But the older you get, the less you care what the rules are, I think. (At least this is how it feels for me. I’m like, fuck these rules! I’m tired. These rules don’t care about me.) So we permitted ourselves to be in our feels, to feel our feelings. As we went about the business of life, we occasionally vented with each other about disappointments and challenges met within the world around us.
**
I was writing, working on my second book. I had no network of friends in my daily life. I mean yes, I had friends. But my bestest friend lived miles away in another state. My remaining (few) friends, local and elsewhere, were busy juggling the dramas in their own lives.
That’s another thing about being black in America that no one tells you—how most of your relationships will be impacted by the weight and burden of black life. Yes, of course, life comes with hardships for EVERYONE. Illnesses and funerals and the occasional hardship, along with weddings and various celebrations happen to all humans, no matter who any of us are.
However, for the average black person—whew! Some of us are just always going through it (either it’s you or me, or someone we know). Always facing some kind of difficulty or painful life challenge. And instead of remembering to notice that many of the incidents of our lives are often the outgrowth of American racism—disenfranchisement and marginalization due to discrimination, for example; incarcerated loved ones, another example—we abandon each other in favor of drama-free lives. We’re not wrong when we do this. It’s a matter of survival, really.
Ultimately, our decision to move to Mexico came down to the by-products of American racism, not just racism itself.
Were we tired of being afraid of being on the wrong end of a police confrontation? Most definitely, yes!
Were we tired of being afraid of being in the wrong place at the wrong time with some over-zealous white person who panicked at the sight of us because it was dark out? Absolutely, yes!
Were we tired of seeing frequent news reports about another innocent black person murdered by police? Tired of how this made us feel? Tired of suppressing these feelings, acting like it’s just life in America in order to be able to have a semblance of our own normal life? Oh my goodness!—yes, absolutely.
***
But those weren’t the things that finally inspired us to leave.
It was the consequential remnants of American racism which pushed us and made us each say, I’m done. I’ve had enough.
It was seeing how generally frustrated black people around us were and the way those frustrations were—at times, subtly or overtly—unleashed on each other. Frustrations which became quiet resentment, which led to general distrust, especially from one black stranger to the next. Especially during the pandemic once face masks became a requirement.
The year 2020 felt like a sharp turning point for black people. It was a strange, painful time for all of us. I don’t think any of us were prepared for the accumulating white hostility that the 2016 presidential election laid bare.
Meanwhile, in our northeastern Pennsylvania communities, for some inexplicable reason, increasing numbers of black strangers stopped being friendly toward each other. Not everyone was this way. Sure, sometimes eyes would meet and polite nods would follow. But these politely friendly occasions became rarer and farther apart once the pandemic hit and we were all wearing masks.
****
The first time—while grocery shopping—I noticed a black stranger deliberately look away when I tried to catch their eyes for a greeting, I was startled and a little embarrassed. I thought it was a weird, isolated incident until it began happening on more occasions.
Howard and I would discuss it at home with wonder since it was happening to him too at work, during his deliveries as a truck driver. My friends and I started discussing it because it sometimes happened to them as well while out and about, on their own errands.
Even worse than averted eyes, there were times when I missed the cues of unfriendliness in passing a black stranger and I actually said hello only to have them look right at me and look away with no response.
Listen.
Listen.
My heart could not stand this.
I can understand being wary of strangers of all skin complexions. I get it. We should all be slightly guarded in new situations. But black people refusing to speak? A simple hello? Especially in majority white spaces which routinely make us feel unwelcome? Black people dissing each other with cold shoulders just because they don’t know the next black person?
No no no no no! I had lived with too much trauma and sadness in previous seasons to now be expected to live this way. To accept this (random) quiet hostility among blacks, this unfriendliness as the new normal. Hell to the no! I absolutely refused.
*****
Remember when I said I didn’t have a network of friends around me? Well, in the fall of 2021 while perusing Youtube, I made the most delicious discovery.
Black women were sharing their lives in video blogs!
Some of them were traveling and some of them had decided to move abroad, and start life anew in a different country. Mexico was one of the most popular countries for black expats.
I was like, whaaaatttt?! Tell me more, sisters!
~~~
Coming up next: In Part 2 I discuss prepping our house for sale. And also, what it was like to sell and give away almost EVERYTHING we owned.
Love, Mia 💕
Originally Published: October 2022
Read Part 2 here.