Million Americans in Mexico? Just guessing
At a county fair in rural East Tennessee, many years before Al Gore invented international truth and integrity, the Internet and global warming, a young woman operated a nifty fund-raising scheme based on guessing the age and weight of suckers.
© Gerry Soroka, 2009
She promoted herself as a psychic, plus or minus three. Her hand-painted sign said if you would risk $1 and stand on the little wooden platform, she could get within three years or three pounds of your age or weight. If she failed, you could pick a prize from the display rack at the back of her booth.
This sucker invested $2 to play double or nothing. I removed my cap to reveal a slipping hairstyle (going, going, almost gone) and did a pirouette, graceful as a walrus in ballerina tights. The psychic, clearly confused by what she thought she saw, missed by eight and 13.
My winnings were a glass ashtray and a little fuzzy bear on a key chain, neither worth 49 cents. It turned out those bigger prizes on the top shelf were for evening bingo games.
This psychic system, polished and improved but still plus or minus a bunch, is now being deployed by the United States and Canada to determine how many migratory citizens have put down roots in Mexico. The host country is not in this guessing game. It doesn't have a clue.
Some time back, Canada estimated 200,000 Canadians are missing and presumed to be south of the border. Most are much too smart to be in Florida.
An American travel agent guessed there are half a million Americans living in Mexico.
The Canadian media, trusting souls, accepted their government figure at face value. The U.S. media pumped up the American guess by 20 percent and 600,000 was suddenly the gospel.
In fact, there is no way to be sure. Just like Canadian geese and American white pelicans, retirees flock south. Some stay. Some die. Some admit the move was a mistake and slip back home under cover of darkness.
Companies send employees to Mexico. Some stay. Some are recalled. Some move on, following industry and commerce to Belize, Guatemala, The Philippines, Hong Kong or India. Hard to keep count.
Old geezers, with the proverbial hay in the barn, follow the sun to Mexico. Some less blessed, still believing $400 is enough for a month, move to Mexico to stretch pensions. Would-be artists come down for good light, colorful scenes and morning coffee with other would-be artists. Others, one jump ahead of the law, blend into Mexico and avoid old, taxing judgments — and ex-spouses. None hold up their hands and ask to be counted.
Embassies might have an idea about who is where if Americans and Canadians would only register new addresses. They don't. Mexico might contribute guidance if all paperwork, in triplicate, could be reduced to computer data.
WalMart parking lot surveys are worthless. Many foreigners have Mexican-plated cars or ride Mexican buses. The Social Security Administration knows how many checks it mails to Mexico but loses track of direct-deposits that trickle down from U.S. banks through ATM machines.
There was a time when Mexico asked nosey little questions about nationality on census forms. Those lines were missing from the latest quiz. Not much information was lost. Census takers skip a lot of foreigners who don't speak Spanish. Foreigners miss a lot of census takers by not answering the doorbell.
Those who live in gringo enclaves along Lake Chapala, and shop only at Superlake, and venture no farther afield that the Lake Chapala Society and Little Theater, know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there are many more ex-pats than locusts in Mexico. There is relatively new, supporting evidence.
Dr. Mary Alcocer-Berriozabal, professor of social anthropology at Universidad de las Américas-Puebla, just outside Mexico City, counted foreigners for her doctoral thesis at the University of Kansas. Her method was shockingly simple. She asked Americans how many Americans are in Mexico. They told her there are so many, she raised that 600,000 media estimate to a cool million. It was pure Houdini, a swift, slick way of guessing numbers, much better than selling cheap ashtrays.
One million sounds good. The number made an impact. Last year, the Dallas Morning News reported that more than a million Americans live in Mexico. It didn't say how many more or where the heck are they.
Somewhere in an old stone building at the end of a cobblestone street, in an office without windows and just one 40-watt bulb, in the back of a dusty file cabinet, bottom drawer, is a plan for a Mexican national identity card.
Once upon a time, everybody in Mexico, even Brits, Balians and real estate salesmen, were going to get in line and sign up for a wallet-size ID card, photo on the front. An embedded data chip was going to tell who, what, when, where and why.
We hear that Mexicans, at last, are going to get identity cards. When those from the United States and Canada are so honored, there'll be far less county-fair guessing about how many foreigners are south of the border. There might even be a way to see who's getting stimulus checks and not paying income tax.
