#481 – The Expat Files: Social Dynamics, Godparenting, and Cultural Trends in Latin America

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 I wonder Hello there all you expat wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started You know the other day on the phone. I had a little meeting of minds with one of my good friends expat Eddie He's always good for a great story never a dull moment in his life. That's for sure no matter how he tries to be normal He just ain't

[00:45] Anyway, you know he's based down there in El Salvador and he was telling me that he went to a party at one of his workers houses Middle-class guy. He said that is middle-class Latin style a guy that makes from three to five hundred bucks a month now Eddie doesn't care if the guys rich poor or in between if Eddie gets an invite if it's a good guy and he likes Him he'll go and really that's good advice for all expat gringos And of course that's gonna happen to you when you're down here in Latin America, too Especially if you have any kind of business at all and you employ the locals that means if you're a typical gringo boss You're probably a good guy or gal therefore. You will get invited to a lot of your employees social events now of course I'm not talking about big drunken bashes here just parties with DJ's or music by a mariachi band along with the pinata and

[01:33] You'll get invited to a lot of smaller spontaneous events, too Most of those are called chura sceres meaning backyard barbecues And that's just what they are and believe me those weekend barbecue events are very popular here Oh, and by the way as you're driving around down here in Latin America. You'll see these trucks drive by occasionally They're called agua fiesta trucks You'll see that painted on the side usually and these are businesses that you'll contact if you're gonna have some kind of afternoon party or quince And you'll party whatever and they'll bring in the chairs and the party favors and the disco and all that so When you do see one of these agua fiesta trucks roll by there just might be a party in your neighborhood Maybe the guy next door and because this is Latin America remember you don't need permits for any of that kind of stuff even when there's a gigantic

[02:21] block party often will just Spontaneously happen on a weekend and you could find you can't get within two blocks of your own driveway That's of course if you live on a regular public street, however if you live in a guarded gated community That's not gonna happen. You'll have to live by the condo or townhouse rules anyway Let me tell you when the neighbors have a party it can get pretty loud even in a high-end neighborhood Especially in a high-end neighborhood because that's where the neighbors pull out all the stops because they have to impress everyone You know I'll do the last guy's yard party. It's all about keeping up with the Joneses I mean Garcia's down here now remember when there is a yard party, and it's close by You just might be hearing along with a throbbing disco a certain amount of fireworks and aerial bombs, too

[03:06] Because that's just the way they celebrate things down here loud and happy that means the next day You're probably gonna pick up a lot of burnt expended fireworks paraphernalia out of your yard and bushes So don't get mad just be ready for it, but I digress where was I oh yeah? I was talking about this party expat Eddie was telling me he went to that was given by one of his employees And Eddie says even though he gets invited to maybe two parties a week because he does have a lot of employees He says he probably only goes to one of his workers parties about once every two or three months because you know that can Get out of hand oh and by the way Eddie tells me that he's been asked to be godfather to about 35 kids already Most all of them kids of some of his longtime employees that can get out of hand, too

[03:53] And you could call that the gringo disadvantage because you know these Latin workers the middle-class folks They're not dumb when a gringo becomes godfather or godmother to one of their children That kid will be instantly vaulted to a higher kind of class or status within his little community of course everyone knows Especially the parents that the kid will get exceptional gifts at Christmas and at birthdays So just a warning here You got to try to get out of that stuff at least Minimize it or you'll be on the hook forever because it really can and does get out of hand So how do you get out of it? diplomatically tactfully and gracefully Because you know refusing a so-called under like that can be kind of sticky if you know what I mean now I could have mentioned this a couple hundred shows ago. Who knows it's hard to remember if I did

[04:40] But there's one easy way out now this too might sound awkward But you just say you're a Jehovah's Witness And you probably won't have to say any more you won't even have to add the fact that they don't permit Such things as being a godfather or godmother because you see Latin America is so Catholic and or Evangelical Christian the rules about the status of the godmother and the godfather in this situation are well laid out and everybody knows him That is godmothers and godfathers must be of the same faith as the kid So even if the Latin parents of the kid don't know that Jehovah's Witnesses don't go in for that sort of thing You know godfather godmother or for that matter dancing smoking tongue studs and neck tattoos The fact is you have to be Catholic or evangelical To be a godfather or godmother down here

[05:25] So the easy way out is just mentioned slightly that you're a testigo the Jehovah that is Jehovah's Witness So am I telling you to outright lie to these folks well in a word yes Otherwise you're gonna be forever bogged down with invites and Christmas dinners and birthday parties and graduations You get the idea because you know if someone asks you to be the godfather to one of their kids How you're gonna get out of it otherwise? Remember expatty said he's had over 30 godfather offers already not to mention his fiancee Because she is a gringos fiancee. She's Madrina That's godmother to about five or six kids are ready, too And he says the offers keep on coming because when it comes to situations like that with kids and mothers

[06:11] Women generally cave in now Eddie says the whole thing has gotten way out of hand It's not the fact that gifts are forthcoming twice a year at least that would be Christmas and birthdays Eddie of course can afford that and more But the fact is he and his fiancee have to show up to these events at least some of the time not to mention They feel obligated now to invite the parents and the kids to their house for a pool party at least once or twice a year Which Eddie says seems to be the highlight of the year for the parents and the kids since none of them could ever Hope to afford a pool now earlier I mentioned the gifts and the presents for the kids that your godmother or godfather to just understand Latin kids are absolutely overjoyed with whatever kind of gift you can give them and they're always

[06:59] Sincerely grateful for whatever now I'm talking about middle and lower middle-class kids Of course because upper middle-class kids are so damn spoiled and in their bubble that nothing seems to impress them But we're not talking about the spoiled entitled kids of the brain-dead rich We're talking about the middle-class people you're gonna come in contact with on a daily basis now Let me show you with middle and lower middle-class latin kids It's refreshing to see how excited and happy the kids get just to get any old kind of gift And why is that? Because the gifts that their family members give them for Christmas and birthdays sometimes amount to nothing more than a card In fact I've been told by so many middle-class latin mothers that it's simply enough to give a kid a party and a little cake for his

[07:46] Birthday gift wrapped presents are not expected because these families just don't have extra dough Especially since latin families can be quite large much larger than they are up in the states these days Anyway, for example a middle-class latin family with five or six kids in it is pretty common and you have to ask yourself How are the parents of that family whose combined income is probably no more than four to six hundred bucks a month How can they ever afford to give out presents to a brood like that a couple times a year or even just on Christmas? So instead it's the little party that they give and that means everything to the kid in fact, you know over the years I've talked to dozens of middle and lower middle-class latin kids and I hear the same story over and over They've got maybe two or three pairs of shoes in the closet two or three pairs of pants and a good pair of pants and a shirt

[08:35] Or a dress whatever for Sundays and holidays Now that reminds me of a lot of the families in my old neighborhood in Chicago back in the 60s Most of us maybe had only three pairs of shoes in the closet and a very limited number of clothing items But we were happy with that and we didn't know any better When you're all in the same boat, nobody notices and nobody has much jealousy either and nope I didn't walk 10 miles through snow storms to get to school either. I got a ride But where was I? Oh, yeah for 80% of Latin Americans. It's this Spartan life That's just the way it is down here Like I mentioned in a previous show the only time you see jealousy rear its ugly head It's when the neighbor kid suddenly has a brand new bike and no one else even has a bike at all And how'd that happen? Well, it was uncle Theo up in Chicago in the country illegally working off the books sending those remisses back down

[09:27] Yep, those remisses to poor communities cause a lot of dislocations and jealousy amongst the locals I know you heard that story already, but allow me to digress as usual. Anyway, Eddie told me he went to that middle-class party I think it was last Sunday and guess what the topic of conversation was all about Donald Trump Now Eddie said as all the adults were sitting around the barbecue They all had some nasty words to say but they didn't exactly want to diss Donald Trump too much in front of Eddie in case Eddie was a supporter or had a different opinion But Eddie said they certainly wanted to pump him for information about the guy what they really wanted to know Is that if Trump won would he do what he said he was gonna do You know actually close the border and kick all the illegals out

[10:15] Of course, like I said so many times before they don't call them illegal aliens down here Nope, not when they're talking about him in polite conversation nor in the media or news outlets However at the kitchen table and on the street, they call them mojados, which means wetback But it has no negative connotation like it does up in the States However down here in the news and in polite conversation. They are in documentos, which means Undocumented people and believe it or not. There is no such phrase in Spanish down here For politically correct or politically incorrect for that matter, of course There's that usual lag time with everything first world. So it will come I think you can see this is the beginning of the PC phenomena down here and they'll have to name it pretty soon I think they'll probably call it in Spanish

[11:01] correcto Politica mente, of course, I'm premature with that phrase and I've never heard it down here That's probably what they're gonna call it correcto. Politica mente Anyway, Eddie was sitting around with these middle-class Latins talking about Donald Trump And he said everyone had a venomous opinion of the guy And remember Eddie's in El Salvador now a country that's produced some of the wickedest gangs ever to hit the US Remember the gang name Mara Salvatrucha. That's the name of a notorious gang You hear in the big cities up in the states which originated down here in El Salvador Anyway, Eddie said there were a lot of different kinds of middle-class Latins at this party Including a few young adolescent guys. These guys he said were kind of gangster wannabes

[11:47] Not really hardened and tough. They had some handmade love-hate knuckle tats But no face or neck tattoos. Not yet These guys told Eddie in no uncertain terms that guess what? The gangs the Salvatruchas up in the states will take care of Trump and Eddie said say what? Oh, and by the way, Eddie said these two young adolescent boys with their weird cut and jellied hairdos Yeah, that's the latest thing down here. We're as nice and polite as they could be in fact They spent most of their time warming up to Eddie and trying to be his best friend Man, I certainly know the feeling that happens to me all the time So bottom line down here you can't switch on the TV anymore and not see something about Donald Trump

[12:32] In fact, it's not just the news either. They're saying nasty things about him on panel shows Not to mention bad Latin variety shows have bad Latin comedians Are there any other kind wearing bad wigs making bad jokes about Trump? Yes, our Latin neighbors are quite the clever creative types In fact, if you ask any middle or lower middle-class Latin to name three American media figures 90% of the time and in no particular order you'll get Obama Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian And if you grab a calculator and add up their three IQs, it works out to well over a hundred Now as for Trump though, he is kind of a lightweight blabber mouth doofus

[13:18] He does dress nice though. It often seems from a distance. Anyway, he's walking around with an overfilled colostomy bag on his head So he's got that going for him in that no one can ever be accused of calling him a pinhead Anyway, if you know the true story of Donald Trump, you'll know he like Bush was born with a silver shoe in his mouth Trump's dad was the one who died and left his kid a real estate empire in New York Trump himself had nothing to do with that except for the fact that it got so big and he became so Indebted back in the 80s that if you recall the true story He actually became one of the first too big to fails In other words, the state of New York couldn't let him go bankrupt They had to bail him out because if they hadn't huge prime sections of real estate would have gone under

[14:05] So he survives today as some kind of a trumped-up billionaire real estate hero But the real embarrassing story is that he too lives a high and mighty celebrity life Thanks to a number of government bailouts meaning if he ever becomes president, which of course he hasn't a chance He's got two things going for him He won't be doing it for the money and he probably won't be doing it for the recognition and the power because he's got that already So should that scare you? Well, it's scaring the Democrats and the Republicans and of course every Latin American I've ever talked to so pick your poison Trump Hillary or whoever better yet vote with your feet That's what so many smart people have done already with countless more lining their ducks up right now So they can get to hell out of Dodge in the near future

[14:53] Meanwhile, you have to kind of appreciate Trump for one thing He's stirring up a pot and waking up a lot of brain-dead Americans to the fact that the country is well in the toilet And as it turns out Latins are so afraid of this guy and what he might do if he becomes president But the gangs now are gonna take care of him At least that's the rumor and I wonder now if and when the first world bought and sold media is gonna put out that story Let's face it planned or not. Trump could never have imagined. He'd get that kind of free publicity Oh and on a lighter note Expat Eddie's fiance told me that she was at a costume and theatrical supply shop in San Salvador Yep, they got those down here, too Where else are people who belong to little theater groups and drama classes and such gonna get costumes and props as well as Halloween stuff

[15:40] Anyway, she says and she has the pulse of middle and upscale Latin America. That's for sure She says that there's gonna be a lot of Donald Trump's walking around down here at Halloween. I Can just see that can't you she says he should blend right in with a double and the Shrek costumes Then I said, oh really? What about Hillary costumes? I think they'll show up and she said no because only the upper five percent of Latins who actually read things know who Hillary is But then again if you ask the average American up north a guy for example Channel surfing on his couch in Cleveland ask him to name three famous Latin Americans Can you guess who the top three would be in no particular order? In fact, the data comes from a recent USC poll try Castro Shakira and Sofia Vergara

[16:29] And they're combined IQs. I think well over 200, but you knew that already. So let's move on now I was speaking about lag time before right? Well, here's another lag time example That's kind of pissing me off. You know when I first got down here to Latin America What is it 25 or so years ago now from the very start even though my Spanish absolutely sucked back then I was mingling with lower middle and upper-class Latins and in doing so I noticed virtually hundreds of examples of that lag time effect Which is part of the reason why so many gringos do so well down here in Latin America in In spite of the business failures, they may have had in the past up in the states quick example You remember maybe 30 years ago I think it was now when those first baby on board stickers start showing up in the back of everyone's station wagon

[17:19] Then shortly after that came the little stickers of your family You know daddy mommy a baby a couple of toddlers and Fido also cutely pasted on the back window of the SUV Or Volvo station wagon. Remember that? Well, how long did that little phenomena last five years? Maybe up in the states. That means the whole fad would have been over by about 1995 at the latest 2000 well down here in Latin America took about ten or fifteen years for that baby on board and that stupid cute family sticker crap to land on SUVs and station wagons here. I first noticed it here starting around 2010 I believe and of course, you'd only see that in the upper 5% the upper end of Latin society you know upscale Latins who had the dough and the wherewithal to

[18:07] Vacation to Disneyland or shop in my jammy where they noticed the presence of stickers like that on gringo cars Which slowly but surely created a kind of a narrow demand based on what upscale Latins perceive as the gringo coolness factor So about five or so years ago those stickers did end up on the cars of the upper middle classes It didn't last long after about a year. They practically all just disappeared. What happened? Well, obviously down here in Latin America It's the big pretentious showoffs and jerks with all the real bling in the bodyguards who just have to shove their wealth and position In everyone's face that occasionally get robbed and occasionally have their kids Kidnapped usually by the way, it's the bodyguard and or the bodyguards families that are involved

[18:54] So displaying that you've got a baby on board and a couple little stickers of a dad and a mom and three cute little kids And a dog. Well, that's kind of like advertising You've got three young kids to kidnap not to mention for defense You've got a little yiping dog not a man-eating Rottweiler And of course since so many wealthy Latins have a malignant desire to show off everything they have Combined with a strong gringo wannabe component Some of those early sticker lovers had some bad experiences So like I said that fad did not last long And now just lately I've encountered another first world lag time effect That's kind of depressing again almost exclusively with so-called Latin wealthy families now

[19:40] Let me set this up by saying before six months ago. I never ever heard this down here in Latin America Sure I heard it all the time up in the States even 25-30 years ago and this might sound like a small thing to you But even back then in the States, I can't tell you how many times I heard a young mother say that her child was a genius Can't you see he's so far ahead of all the other kids in his class or the neighborhood. He's not just gifted He's beyond gifted in a league of his own. Can't you see brighter more clever quicker and much more creative than Any of the other kids his or her age? So back then 25 or 30 years ago. I was used to people especially mothers Explaining to me how their kids were brilliant in fact Geniuses and you know I'd hear it from my own sisters and brothers and cousins about their kids

[20:28] You know being so special and when they'd open that wallet and show me a picture of their kid That's when I'd pull out a picture of my dog So when I moved down here to Latin America, I thought that game had ended until lag time kicked in About six months ago when all of a sudden I'm sitting at one of these high-end social gatherings and guess what? I heard not one but two ladies tell me about their brilliant genius. That would be in Spanish Henio child just so much more advanced than all the other boneheads in class not to mention the rest of the neighborhood and in fact The known universe. Okay, then over the next few months. I heard it another couple times always from the mothers It seems then I ran into one of my gringo schoolteacher friends He's taught for some years at one of those helicopter schools, and he said you know Johnny. I just can't believe my ears

[21:19] I have these parent teacher conferences and the mothers come in almost never the dads Sound familiar and the mothers these days are talking about how gifted their children are in fact He said some of them are using that word Henio. You know genius. He said Johnny What am I supposed to say to these ladies that your kid is smart? But he's no Elon Musk, then he laughed and said Johnny. I didn't mean to say Elon Musk I should have said Carlos Slim. They know him, but they don't have a clue who Elon Musk is So suddenly now all these upscale Latin women think their kids are gifted slash Geniuses which is I hate to say the same delusion that so many women in the states have about their young kids Including some people in my own family, okay

[22:05] So all right if you think your kids a genius at four or six But why is it that when he's an 18 year old dropout with multiple piercings and tongue studs and after he's wrecked three of your Cars how did that young wonder kind mutate into a gothic heavy metal slug with a 26 word vocabulary? Cool, dude. That's awesome So just note that the gringo first world lag time effect in that respect has arrived here in Latin America And now it seems a certain percentage of upscale latins think their kids Gifted slash genius and you got to know there's no cure for a parent that thinks that way Every little word blurted out of the kids mouth is something that has to be recorded for posterity

[22:51] Where else on Facebook so then how does the truth come out only time? Recreational drugs and a closet full of mega death CDs will prove otherwise So don't blame it on the kids you got to blame it on the parents mostly the mothers And maybe the only cure for that parental affliction is to beat mom over the head with a selfie stick believe me I've thought about it, but that won't work if there's one thing I've learned from being down here so very long is that no one can hold back that irresistible tsunami force of the first world gringo lag time effect and luckily 90% of the time it's in our favor Part of our gringo advantage oh And one thing about so-called geniuses because you know it's a word that's tossed around more frequently these days than dude or awesome

[23:39] Everybody's a genius Kurt Cobain a genius in music. Yeah, he's right up there with Beethoven and Mozart Then there's those geniuses of business Ben and Jerry and what about famous Amos and Zuckerberg? What about my uncle Harry? He owns 16 subways. What a genius, huh? But let's for a second talk about real geniuses How about the field of physics now if you ask any nerdy scientific type of physics major? Who would rank as all-time geniuses in that field number one Isaac Newton who aptly described our physical world? With equations that stood the test of time for 200 plus years then of course you got Einstein a few hundred years later who changed all that with curved space and relativity

[24:25] And then there's the guy that always seems to come in at number three a guy Non-scientific people have never heard of before and if you look him up you'll find he's credited with dozens of fantastic discoveries But get this he only had an IQ of 125 was is respectable But no one ever considers genius and by all accounts. He was a perfectly normal looking average type of guy No anal nerd like you might suspect whose mother admitted to the press that her genius son Could never really tell right from left so to solve that problem in his high school years She discovered a small mole on his left hand and so from then on she said look left is the hand with the mole So all through the rest of his life when in doubt Richard Feynman would glance at his left hand

[25:14] Oh, and by the way Do you know there are really two kinds of genius the first one considered a slightly lesser kind of genius? For example the guy who discovered the laser the first one of its kind everybody says he's a genius and he is to a degree But then when you get a bunch of scientists together to look at it They look back and say hey, you know if I'd have had the right equipment I probably could have done that too because they can trace exactly the logical steps He built on now the same would be true for a guy like Alfred Nobel the guy who discovered dynamite You know the Nobel Prize any decent scientist could trace the logical flow of events Then comes the other kind of genius. That's the kind of magical genius You might say like for example Newton and Einstein and Richard Feynman

[26:01] When they came up with their great discoveries and theories when other scientists look at that end result whether it's a black hole Nuclear fusion the action of nanoparticles at the subatomic level There's a kind of a magical gap in between somewhere that came as a mega spark of creativity Which can't logically be traced back from the end result So then all you guys and gals out there who think you've known a few geniuses in your life Think again these guys and gals come along in their fields truly every 50 hundred or even 200 years Now as for me in my life I've known two maybe three guys that are extremely brilliant, but however brilliant they are They don't fit the definition of true genius not yet

[26:48] Anyway, so that's that you expect gonna bees and wannabes out there when you come down It's very very unlikely you'll ever encounter a genius But you're sure to meet some mothers who will try to persuade you that their kids are so like expat Eddie always says there are two Somewhat unrelated rules you should follow as a gringo down here number one gringos should never carry a gun in their car Lest you be tempted to use it in extreme road rage situations, which are very frequent occurrences down here, by the way Rule number two Eddie says when around young upscale mothers never carry a selfie stick Lest you be tempted to cane them to death thus preventing the birth of another child genius South of the border

[27:35] Down Mexico you've been listening to the expat files living in Latin America coming to you twice a week from Somewhere south of the border email me the expat files at gmail.com And don't forget to check out expat wisdom calm to sign up for your free reports on Latin America See you next time knows famous