Guadalajara Reporter

Why is it that so many people moving here from other countries seem to think that Mexico didn’t exist before they got here? They behave as though it is some sort of fairyland invented and waiting just for their arrival…and in many cases just for them to criticize. They write letters home that there are no plumbers or real gardeners in Mexico and that the place is filled with huge spiders (I guess they are looking for sympathy or want their friends to think that they are extremely brave to come to this ‘awful’ place). The same people are often quick to join various charitable organizations and just as quick to tell those who have labored with the entity for years how it should be run, without any knowledge of its history or the local culture. In some cases, these newly arrived and smarter-than-anyone-else types actually begin to think that they were the founders and at least the saviors of the organization, even though the group has been around for half a century.

To our new friends, in the words of my high school English teacher: “Sit down and shut up — you might learn something.”