#219 – The Expat Files: Beauty Pageants, Expats, and Immigration Challenges

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now as I wonder My thoughts ever straight Hi everybody I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files Living in Latin America the show that tells you what it's really like to live work play and or retire in Latin America I tell it just like it is so let's get started Now I don't know if you keep up with these things I certainly don't but I have noticed lately in the Latin newspapers that the Miss universe pageant spin going on now to me That stuff's also plastic and worthless But I have to make a comment here because like I said in a show a long long time ago

[00:49] There's a disproportionate number of winners coming from Latin America And once that registers in your head sooner or later, you're gonna say why the hell is that? Are they just more beautiful than the other girls in the rest of the world? Or maybe those contests are somehow rigged Well, let me just mention that down here in Latin America Unlike up in the first world beauty pageants are a sport a national sport coming in a close second right behind soccer or football as they call it and it's funny they call it that because they actually don't know that it comes from the English foot and ball since the Spanish foot is PA and ball is Belota so really they should call it Belota PA, but they don't they call it football go figure Anyway about those girls and those beauty pageants

[01:36] I know I said a little bit about this on a show a long long time ago But I'd like to add to that since I found out something recently that kind of disturbs me about those pageants Let me repeat that in this gigantic macho society of over 500 million people That's a half billion beauty pageants are national sports and since this is such a macho society there is Sexist as can be and unlike in the first world every business neighborhood church school girl scout troop Neighborhood city town district. They all have beauty pageants on such a regular basis that every few days in any Latin newspaper You'll see photo after photo of semi finalists finalists and eventually winners And even though there's hundreds upon hundreds of beauty pageants like that going on every year in every Latin American country

[02:24] Almost none of the winners of these contests no matter how beautiful or talented they are will ever get the chance to even be a Contestant in the national beauty contest that eventually selects, Miss Peru or Guatemala or Costa Rica Etc. Etc. You know the girls who win their country's title and end up going to compete in the Miss Universe pageant Let me explain a bit in order to get the title of Miss Venezuela Let's say or Miss Peru each of a country's individual cities towns or provinces Has a local pageant and the winners of those go to the national contest Where they select Miss Peru or Venezuela or Colombia sounds perfectly logical, right? But that's not really how it works because you see

[03:10] 99.9% of the beautiful girls in any country who would for example like to enter her local city's beauty queen Competition and try to win that so she can represent her city or town in the national pageant Well 99% of women no matter how beautiful or talented they are will never get that chance No matter how much they desire it that's because in order to enter that first citywide competition a girl has to have paid for and gone to a Modeling school in her city that is one of the sponsors of the national competition And for the lower and middle class girls of a country no matter how talented or beautiful They just can't afford to do that Because you see after all said and done these modeling schools cost a hundred to two hundred dollars a month to go to

[03:59] Which is pretty close to the average monthly salary of the majority of working Latins Not to mention when a girl is attending one of those modeling schools And I'm told the courses and programs vary from about six months to a year Anyway, it turns out that once you're enrolled since you're always competing with the girls that are enrolled in your own class You must buy the makeup the clothing and the accessories approved and sold by the people on staff at your modeling school So while you're enrolled there You can add another hundred to two hundred bucks a month for makeup clothing and accessories Which makes it virtually impossible for a girl from an average family to ever scrape up the tuition to go to one of these schools Which means only girls from wealthy or upper-middle-class families need apply and

[04:48] because of the way the economic structure breaks down in Latin America that means only a very tiny group of girls can qualify and Since only about three to five percent of Latin American families are considered upper-middle-class or wealthy that leaves out about 95% or more of all Latin American families. They just can't possibly swing it no matter how smart talented or beautiful Their daughters might be so beauty and talent aren't the primary qualifiers It's money and those modeling schools are very clique ish It's cash only or plastic and scholarships Forget about it The people who run those schools want to keep them Exclusive and go to great lengths to make sure girls from common backgrounds never get a chance to walk through their doors Except maybe as cleaning ladies and that's just the way it is

[05:37] So the next time you're flicking through the cable TV channels and you see one of these pageants whether it's Miss universe Miss world Miss planetoid or whatever just remember that no matter how beautiful and talented those Latin girls look each one of them Comes from a somewhat wealthy and privileged family and for every Miss Paraguay or Argentina that you do see up there on the runway There are 10,000 or more beautiful and talented girls Just like her or even better qualified in many respects sitting in their little towns back at home watching the pageant themselves Wishing they could have entered but knowing all along they never had a chance The buck stops at the modeling agency and they just didn't have the bucks and you know a lot of gringles and expats that I've spoken To they think that all the winners of these pageants that they see in the papers every week are true

[06:24] Cinderella stories that at least some of the winners end up at the Miss Brazil cattle call. Well, that's not true at all In fact, there are no Miss Brazil cattle calls Now you'd logically think that in all the local papers at least once a year There'd be an ad saying something like all single girls between such-and-such an age who wish to enter the Miss Peru or Argentina Competition please go to so-and-so website to get the information on how to enter Well, guess what that never ever happens The only girls that ever end up in the national competition are the ones that went to a well-connected and expensive by Latin standards Modeling school. So in effect those little girls are Latin versions of your typical spoiled American princess

[07:10] And now that I've said all that I have to make a disclaimer for all I know It's exactly the same formula up in the States Okay enough about that now being that it's the holidays a lot of expats get the urge around this time to have a traditional American Holiday dinner. I know they get that craving around Thanksgiving because I hear expats talking to each other about it some weeks beforehand What are we gonna do for Thanksgiving? You know whose house are we gonna go to to have that turkey dinner with all the fixings and more importantly They're always wondering will it be any good or just the bird's-eye TV dinner version? And that's what a lot of expats think about when Thanksgiving rolls around And then you have the Christmas in the New Year's festivities with the ham or goose or whatever Tradition you had back when you lived up in the States now some 10 or 15 years ago

[07:58] This used to be a very tough thing to organize and try to replicate Because you just didn't have those traditional North American fixings available south of the border and if you could get them they were very substandard because they've been sitting in a freezer for six months or so and When you thought them out, they did look like reasonable fact similes But they taste like holiday dinner at the VA hospital or a nursing home, but that was then Nowadays, we've got all these first-world restaurant franchises down here that offer holiday dishes like turkey cranberries Pumpkin pie things that just weren't available down here years ago So what I'm getting at is expats who think they'll be sacrificing certain things when they're down here Well, that may have been true a few years ago, but these days we've got everything

[08:46] Believe me even big 10 course holiday dinners North American style And if you like to cook that stuff from scratch Remember they've got Walmart's and Costco's all over the place down here, too And don't forget those big first-world hotels like the Clarion and the Hilton and the Radisson and the princess They're all down here, too, and they've always got a big fancy reasonable facsimile of your standard big North American holiday dinner if you want to pay 20 bucks or more a plate for the Privilege and always a few days before the event you'll see ads in the local big city Newspapers in English for these big hotel buffets trying to snag all those gringos who are homesick For that big North American holiday traditional meal, and it does work I've been to a few of these hotel holiday deals myself and most even have a live band playing

[09:36] American Christmas music to in English Oh and speaking of music in the week leading up to Christmas about 90% of all radio stations down here switch over to Christmas music 24 7 and they do play a mix of Latin Christmas music and the traditional Christmas songs sung by the original artists in English now the thing is you'll recognize all those Latin Christmas music songs because they're Exact musical copies of the classics by Sinatra and Mel Torme and Johnny Mathis and Judy Garland, etc But they're sung by famous Latin singers in Spanish, of course But the funny thing is if you know your Spanish you'll realize they're very very bad Translations in fact, sometimes they're completely different words altogether compared to the English original

[10:23] For example in the song jingle bells, you know, we sing jingle bells jingle bells jingle all the way down here It's a famous song with exactly the same musical melody But everywhere they say jingle bells in the original in the Latin version they say Navi died So for them it goes Navi died not be done Navi died which has nothing to do with jingling bells at all They just keep repeating Navi died, which means Christmas time and that makes no sense compared to the original But that's how they sing it details details, right? But the funniest translation for me is actually a pretty good translation of white Christmas Which in Spanish is Blanca Navi died, which actually does mean white Christmas so far so good however

[11:08] 99.9% of all Latins have never seen snow in their lives and they never will except on TV So when they're dreaming of a white Christmas man, they're really dreaming and by the way around the holidays I get invited to a lot of these get-togethers at other expats houses, which I almost never go to But you know when you do sit around and relax with a bunch of long-term expats Especially when there's very scary economic times up north like these the small talk that you hear from these expats Isn't at all what it was like a few years back when I used to hear expats complain about the things that they missed About the first world years ago, you know before the internet was really strong 24-7 and the power would go out a couple times a week and when you bought appliances down here

[11:54] You couldn't get replacement parts or they didn't honor the guarantee Well expats don't complain about those routine things anymore because those days have long gone and these days when I talked to long-term Expats and the subject comes up of why they moved down here in the first place I rarely hear the usual suspects anymore. The reasons why I came down here for example, you know for me It was to get off that first world treadmill to lower my stress Basically just take everything in my life down a notch or two Well, you know long-term expats who haven't been back much to the States at all we only find out how really bad it is up there from green expats who are coming down and telling us the reasons in the House and the wise of why they left now I'm hearing from brand new green expats that they're coming down here because they just can't stand the US government

[12:41] They can't stand the cancerous growth of Big Brother. They can't stand the lying two-faced politicians They can't stand the education systems up there what the fractured North American society is doing to their kids they can't stand big pharma and the out-of-control prescription drugging of not only adults but young kids and They can't stand the powers of the TSA and Homeland Security and the cancerous growth of all the other alphabet agencies in the states They're leaving because they're finding it's almost impossible to do business up there with all the massive Regulations inspections and paperwork you got to go through not to mention the taxes They're leaving because they know the US currency is being debased and destroyed And that they the middle class are the ones that are being milked to death to bail out to two big to fail banks and corporations

[13:30] that had terrible judgment and New green expats are leaving because they see the financial freight train going off the rails and ready to hit a brick wall And they don't want to be in the first world when that happens And they know they their friends and your neighbors are never gonna survive a catastrophe like that up in Cleveland Basically what I'm saying is this new green expats these days are leaving the US in greater numbers than ever before Mostly for completely different reasons than I left some 21 years ago back Then when guys like expat Eddie and I left for greener pastors down here in the third world We left looking for a cheaper better more relaxed lifestyle Basically you could sum it up by saying we wanted to live longer happier lives in places that offered much more opportunity and flexibility

[14:15] Than where we came from Back then it was way before 9-11 There was no TSA or Homeland Security or QE 1 2 or 3 and the words too big to fail didn't even exist yet Not to mention the word trillion that was not in our vocabulary yet some 21 years ago back Then the word billion was so massive and unimaginable It was only used in scientific terms to describe extremely small or large physical or astronomical events for guys like Eddie and I Billion was as unimaginable a number as million was for our parents generation and nowadays You've got lottery payouts worth nearly a billion dollars and idiot talentless hip-hop and rap stars worth a billion dollars I just read that Sean puffed Eddie Combs as a billionaire and Kim Kardashian's worth a hundred million

[15:07] And to think Tesla the guy that invented the AC motor and power generation as we know it died broke Oh, and by the way, he invented the radio to not Marconi Go ahead and look it up Tesla got the patent before Marconi But don't say that when there's an Italian present or you'll get it in the cojones So anyway, all of us expats long-term and green We all started out with some common reasons why we came down in the first place But these days that list is no longer simply about lowering your stress kicking back and taking your life down a few notches That's way too simplistic Every day the list of reasons to leave the first world keeps growing But knowing all the old traditional reasons for leaving and hearing all the new ones

[15:54] I still like expat Eddie's answer the best people ask him why he left the states for Latin America He doesn't go through a big song and dance and list a hundred and one reasons He holds up the middle finger of both hands and he says it's my way of flipping the bird to guys like Obama Bush and the rest of those corporate fascists now Let's talk about something that you're never gonna read about and you're only gonna hear from guys like me who've been down here a while Now, like I said so many times before you think North Americans don't have savings Well about 90% or more of Latin's don't have any money in the bank to speak of meaning 90% don't have any Reserve or padding at all in case there's a small emergency and it becomes so very obvious to expats as they start Accumulating Latin friends and start hearing and seeing what's going on in those families

[16:42] the truth is it's probably not 90% but more like 95% or even more of Working Latin's who absolutely live from paycheck to paycheck and that's why they're so Hopelessly addicted to credit and debit cards the ones that qualify for credit that is and that's also why when you talk to a Latin Who actually does have a credit card not a debit card because the fact is? Everyone who's working on the books down here in other words not working on the street for cash But for a legit company that pays taxes They direct deposit salaries these days and they all get a debit card The employees have a card to withdraw their salaries at ATM machines But for Latin's who actually have a traditional credit card like a visa or a master card with a credit limit

[17:29] It shocked me to find out Probably 95% or more of these people people who have a traditional credit card only have a two or three hundred dollar limit on that Card and it's in the local currency pesos or lampiros or quetzales or colognes not in dollars because their credit cards down Here are based on the local currency now I'm asking you guys up in the first world Would you even bother to have a credit card like that in your wallet one? That's only got a 200 or a $300 limit. I know it seems ridiculous to us, but that's the way it is down here In fact, the only Latin person I know that has a reasonable credit limit is my lawyer He's got a $2,000 credit limit on his visa card And of course people that own substantial businesses have first-world style limits, too But I'm talking about local people that you and I will come in contact with on a daily basis off the tourist trail

[18:19] And by the way that low two or three hundred dollar credit limit that 95% of all Latin's who hold credit cards have That's one of the major stumbling blocks why they could never get a legal work visa or tourist visa to the United States So if they do want to go there, they have to slip in illegally and for that matter 98% of Latin's can't even get a legal tourist visa for 90 days to visit Mexico because Mexico believe it or not has the exact same visa requirements as the US does and that's to prohibit poor Latin Americans south of Mexico to ever gain legal entry there and Mexico's made it very strict like that to get a legal visa because it's a gateway for all Latin American people to enter the US

[19:04] illegally pop through Mexico first and if they could get an easy visa to Mexico that would make it all that much easier for Them. Oh and speaking of illegal immigration into the States You've heard the numbers thrown around that over a million people enter illegally every year from Mexico And of course, most of these illegals are Mexican But about 30 to 40 percent are coming from other Latin American countries south of Mexico They've slipped into Mexico illegally and they just hang out there sometimes for months at a time Waiting for that opportunity to slip into the States Well, did you know that at any given time in Mexico? There are also over a million illegal aliens That is non-mexican citizens from other Latin American countries south of Mexico that are just mauling around in Mexico

[19:53] Anyway, when probably 90% of all the Latins in the whole world Dream of someday making it to the States and having that American dream or at least making it to Disneyland because that's another great Latin dream believe it or not obviously the preferred method to try to get there or Mexico would be to apply to the US or Mexican embassy for a real legal visa but unfortunately one of the stiff requirements for you to get a visa to go to Mexico or the United States if You're coming up from another Latin country Is that you have to produce a credit card when you're applying for that visa at the embassy that has a limit of at least? 2,000 US dollars which immediately eliminates probably 95 to 98 percent of all Latin people

[20:40] Because like I said before nearly all Latin Americans who hold regular credit cards have a limit no larger than around 300 bucks So they're so well right out of the starting gate and they know it That's why over a million each year slip into the US and Mexico illegally But now let me tell you a little twist on what's happening with the immigration issue Regarding first world US and Canadian citizens who found an easy way to make good money Legally or quasi legally off the extreme desire of Latins to get to the US or Canada Legally now remember in a past show I mentioned that some astute expats are coming down here to Latin America and doing the lecture tour circuit

[21:25] Normally using that lag time effect I talked about all the time and the gringo advantage to promote many seminar topics that have been beaten like a dead horse up in The first world and I've been long since discredited like timeshares and real estate and mortgage flipping you get the picture I once got sucked into one of those options and commodities courses myself Which set me back a weekend and about 300 bucks and in the end? totally useless like I'm gonna beat the pros that do it for a living and still lose their asses and Let's not forget those weekend courses in stock picking and forex trading just enough knowledge to make you dangerous, you know And don't forget we had those VHS and cassette courses on stocks and options in real estate flipping to remember those

[22:12] You must remember how midnight cable TV was loaded with infomercial stuff like that Well, guess what the infomercials haven't made it here yet Except for the Ginzu knives in the ab cruncher and the Hollywood bra But the guys giving the actual seminars have or I should say they're just getting started now I've seen the weekend courses on commodities and stock trading and options trading and gullible Latins actually think they're gonna make money with these things just like we did in the 80s and 90s They don't know it's money in the toilet because a bona fide successful first world gringo is up there presenting the course So it must be top-notch and do remember like I said, Latins don't have any extra money at all They've got no savings at all But they can scrape up 50 or 100 to attend one of these weekend get rich quick courses

[23:01] But it's only a sure thing for the presenter if it's a real-life gringo putting it on now I noticed just recently in some of the newspapers in the big cities down here There's a new wrinkle in the seminars for gullible Latins formula There are a couple of first-world gringos offering special tricks and tips on how to immigrate into the United States or Canada or even Europe Legally now I'm looking at one of these little newspaper promotions now It has a nice picture of the Canadian flag on it with that nice red maple leaf The title of the seminar is how to migrate legally into Canada and it explains how the presenter of the seminar a Canadian lawyer a so-called Immigration specialist will help you with certain little-known tips on how to gain your residence how to get a tourist visa

[23:48] Or how to become a student in Canada and it says Canada is one of the best places to live in the world. It's secure prosperous and multicultural Canada offers free health Education and a high grade of security Not only that it has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world and this is all in Spanish, of course And then it says in big letters This seminar will pre-qualify you for a fast-track to Canadian Residency it says don't miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity Presented by first world specialists to take advantage of a distinct change in your life and your family Immigrate to Canada legally and we'll show you how then it says dial this number and sign up now

[24:37] for your personal reservations at this very limited event if You sign up before Friday. It's $30 US Otherwise, it's $50 at the door. Now. It really does look all official and everything like it's coming directly from the Canadian Embassy Anyway, I checked their website and I actually called the Canadian Embassy and they claim they have nothing at all to do with these people They're not affiliated with it and have no comment either way, but you can see where I'm going with this. Can't you? I mean, how gullible can you be but these things sell out? Here's a guy from Canada who says hey I can make some money in Latin America I'll tell these poor Latin saps that I'll give them some little known secret immigration tips

[25:23] For 50 bucks ahead and you know, it's not only Canada either I've seen seminars like this given by so-called professional first world immigration specialists offering secret tips so that you can get into the US legally to and There are about 35 to 75 bucks ahead and they sell out too and I'll tell you something There are no little lone Secrets or tips for people trying to immigrate into the US legally that they can't find in the embassy Literature that they hand out or after about three minutes of searching on the internet and you know These seminar guys are pretty smart they keep the price of the seminar just low enough So it's not exactly out of the reach of the average latin guy or gal who've always had that dream

[26:09] They'll do anything to get closer to that reality And here's a funny thing when I called up the US Embassy and asked them about these seminars They say they have no affiliation with those things either though one guy I know personally at the US Embassy He told me that probably a good half of the people at those seminars were once in the states illegally and caught and deported And because of that they're registered in the immigration computers and will never ever be able to enter the US legally with a visa They'll just never get one It's not allowed in your band for life Which means immediately half the people in those seminars are permanently disqualified and they don't even know it so for them That's 50 bucks in a toilet and the other half of those people who pay for that seminar

[26:54] Well according to the guy I know at the US Embassy He says probably 99% of those will never be able to go to the states legally either He says about the only sure way for one of those folks to get to the US Legally is to either marry a US citizen fat chance or to be a brilliant Latin high school student Who somehow gets a scholarship up to a first world university fat chance again? Finally he said if you don't have any of that going for you. You have to have a credit card with a $2,000 limit and these are guys that can barely scratch up 50 bucks for the seminar You've been listening to the expat files living in Latin America

[27:41] Coming to you each week from somewhere south of the border and don't forget you can email me on anything at all about Latin America the expat files at gmail.com See you next time Picture