WRITTEN ON MONDAY
Today I am flying down from Asheville to Leon, Mexico, and tomorrow will take the shuttle from Leon to San Miguel, where I will be for a month. The first leg of the trip from Asheville to Dallas/Fort Worth was uneventful. If there were any Mexicans on the plane I didn’t notice them. Dallas/Fort Worth is a big hub for American Airlines. Many of the people were coming to Texas for business or to visit family. The woman next to me was connecting with a flight to Spokane.
But in the airport there was a shift. All the announcements were made in Spanish and in English and as I sat at the gate to board my flight, almost everyone was Mexican. I had wondered how a flight from Dallas to Leon could draw enough passengers. I was thinking in American terms. How many Americans could, like me, be going to San Miguel?
Slowly it dawned on me that I was already entering Mexico. People on this flight weren’t tourists, they were Mexicans who had been visiting family in the United States, or, more likely, Mexicans who were going home for a visit.
And then I was ashamed to realize that my bias, like Trump’s, came from the fact that the only Mexicans I have encountered were immigrants to the United States and very likely illegal immigrants. But almost certainly almost everyone on the flight was an American citizen, every bit as American as I am, or they had a green card and were on their way to United States citizenship. I never thought of my
German wife, Kathe, who for fifty years had a green card and refused to become an American citizen, as an immigrant. I was married to a German and it enriched my life immeasurably. Those on the plane with a green card, which permits working in the United States, could also think of themselves as being Mexican first and not even want to become American citizens.
And then to confuse things even more, I had heard of a number of United States citizens who have decided to live in San Miguel de Allende. I plan to visit a few. Are they immigrants or are they American citizens who enjoy living in Mexico?
Again, as I did in Colombia a few months ago, when face to face with people that many Americans malign, I find them to be warm and friendly with a rich culture. I sense that American prejudice to people who are different from ordinary Americans and the current mania to throw them out, is a form of American blindness and ignorant projection which I have also been infected by..
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 