its been brought to my attention that my narration of my experience cd be interpreted as advising aspiring US journos to move to the Global South in order to take advantage of lower cost of living. i would never suggest that. do not take that as a lesson from me. https://twitter.com/madeleinewhat/status/1353863891999141889

i try to be as transparent as possible about how i "make it work" bc things always look easier from outside. id be misrepresenting not only my experience, but the reality of the industry & MX, if i implied cost of living isn't a determining factor in me being able to pursue this

i could spend all day shitting on ignorant gringos who move to MX bc it's cheap. i have spent many a day doing so! it reveals an incredibly colonial & racist sense of entitlement. the ~paper of record~ just thoroughly roasted them here & u can read that https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/02/world/americas/virus-mexico-visitors.html

I do have a healthy share of contempt for my fellow gringos who move here & treat Mexico like their personal theme park. BUT I dont want to individualize what is a systemic problem bc it is also a issue of labor & capital. (being an ignorant asshole is an individual problem tho)

labor costs, & therefore cost of living, in MX are kept forcibly low for the benefit of transnational capital. transnational corporations of all sorts hire workers in MX bc they can pay them less than their US counterparts. like: maquiladoras.

journalism does the same. outlets increasingly rely on intl freelancers bc it's cheaper than having staff correspondents. it's rly convenient for the US outlets who hire me that I can accept 300 bucks for a few weeks of work! it's a dream! my labor is incredibly exploitable!

most of the gringos i meet here, including most of the rly insufferable ones, worked in the service industry &/or creative fields in the US & did not make a living wage. here their income goes much further. that's really great for their bosses!

relevant qs: WHY is moving from the US to a country w 1/5 the cost of living one of the only ways to make ends meet?? WHY isn't everyone in the US AND in Mexico guaranteed a living wage?? WHY is it acceptable for the labor of ppl on one side of a border to value so much less??

so yes my sitch works out bc of a loophole that has everything to do with the fcked up treaties that determine how labor & capital r permitted to flow across borders. it wd b way better for me if I made an income that was livable in the US! I do not & wont misrepresent that fact!

tldr all workers deserve a living wage, globalized neolib capitalism does a gr8 job of creating hierarchies of exploitation across borders, we shd pay more attention to the system that creates those hierarchies, & dont come to mexico to be an asshole