A recent lowrider show in downtown Mexico City. For decades, Mexican immigrants shaped the culture of California cities like Los Angeles. Now, a growing number of their children and grandchildren are moving to Mexico and influencing the communities they're settling in.
(Levi Bridges/KQED)
A growing number of Californians with Mexican ancestry are relocating to Mexico — the same country their ancestors once left in search of a better life.
Since the pandemic, the number of American citizens applying for Mexican residency has nearly doubled. Many of the transplants are remote workers looking to settle in a country with rents that are often a fraction of what a typical apartment goes for in San Francisco.
But that move is, of course, a deeply personal one. Reporter Levi Bridges asked three Angelenos who recently moved to the Mexico City area to explain why they left California and why they don’t intend on coming back.
Tlahui González
From Boyle Heights (LA); now living in Ecatepec de Morelos, Mexico
Occupation: Jewelry maker and dancer
Tlahui González, a jewelry maker and dancer from Los Angeles, ended up settling in Mexico City in part because she does not have to be tied to the kind of full-time job she would need to survive in California and can be more present in her young son’s life. (Levi Bridges/KQED)
Tlahui González of Los Angeles ended up settling in Mexico City partly because she does not have to be tied to the kind of full-time job she would need to survive in California and can be more present in her young son’s life. González’s family emigrated to LA from the Mexican state of Jalisco in the 1990s. During her childhood, González was the only one in her family who wasn’t undocumented. Her older sisters told her about traditional dances — called danza — they had learned back in their parents’ village in Mexico. González found places to learn danza in LA and connect with her family’s culture through dance.
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As an adult, González traveled to Mexico City to study danza. While visiting, she fell in love with a man who lived there and decided to stay. She now has a 3-year-old son.
González grew up learning traditional Mexican dances as a way to connect with the country her parents and older siblings emigrated from. Now based in Mexico City, she travels the country performing with a group of local dancers. (Levi Bridges/KQED)
González says her son is enjoying a much different childhood than the one she had growing up in California, when her parents were always gone, working different jobs to make ends meet. In Mexico City, González gets by making jewelry and dancing and can focus on being a mom instead of working full time.
“When I’m back there [in California], I am more in a rush. I need to go work all the time,” she said. “In Mexico, I can be with my son any time of day, comfort him when I see him cry, or help him when I see him angry. Just be there for him in general, which is something I didn’t have growing up.”
Colleen Rodríguez
From Upland (LA County); now living in Colonia Del Valle, Mexico City
Occupation: Working remotely for a tech startup
Last year, Colleen Rodríguez fulfilled a lifelong dream of moving to Mexico to master Spanish and learn more about the country her grandparents came from. (Levi Bridges/KQED)
Although Colleen Rodríguez’s grandparents emigrated from Mexico City to LA, she didn’t speak Spanish at home when she was growing up and only knew Mexico from occasional trips to the beach south of Tijuana. She got bullied in school for having Mexican heritage, and from an early age says she had the feeling she didn’t quite belong in the United States.
As an adult, Rodríguez began to think about moving to Mexico one day to master Spanish and explore her family’s roots. She started traveling there frequently and finally decided to make the move last year amid skyrocketing housing costs in Southern California.
“You can eat so much better food for less than even McDonald’s. Even in a big city, just right there on the corner, you can get fruit, or tortillas or cheeses,” she says, pointing to just one of the reasons she plans on staying.
Madeline Arroyo Romero
From Highland Park (LA); now living in Iztapalapa, Mexico City
Occupation: English teacher
Madeline Arroyo Romero grew up undocumented in LA. But after becoming a U.S. citizen, she decided to move back to the part of Mexico City where she was born to be closer to family. (Levi Bridges/KQED)
Madeline Arroyo Romero crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with her mom when she was 5 years old, where they reunited with her father, who was already living in LA. As a kid, she didn’t know she was undocumented until her uncle in Mexico died, and her parents told her why they couldn’t go to the funeral. Her entire family eventually became U.S. citizens.
After her mother retired and moved back to Mexico City, Arroyo Romero followed her. Almost all of her extended family lives in Mexico City, and after so many years away, she says she wants to be near them and make up for lost time.
“You know I could be better off economically in California, but that wouldn’t make me happy,” she said. “My happiness right now is being close with my family.”
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