The American Society of Jalisco (Amsoc) has steadfastly served the Anglophone community of greater Guadalajara for six and a half decades. In a heyday of a 4000-some strong membership, they purchased the large house in Colonia Chapalita that now serves as their headquarters. That was the eighties. Today, Amsoc is struggling to get even 200 paying members.
Even ten years ago, times were different. The club counted around 1000 members then. The explanation for the recent decline: simple attrition. Amsoc was begun as a retirement society, and though membership is open to anyone, its base certainly skews old. Thus, many former members have outgrown the Society, moving on to The United States for health reasons, moving Lakeside or, yes, dying.
No one seems fully able to explain why the replacements have failed to turn up. It may be a combination of factors. Even as Guadalajara’s club has waned, the ones at Lake Chapala have waxed. Guadalajara in the 80s was a much smaller community than today, and perhaps the trend is a turn-off for retired expats. Others blame Mexico’s drug war and the bad press that it has generated for stopping an influx of new blood. Still others feel that times are just, well, different. Longtime club president Ann Whiting recalls, “When I came here 52 years ago, very few people spoke English.” With the Internet and Skype and global society and increasing numbers of Mexicans who speak English, there is surely less of a pressing need to affiliate with other Anglophones.
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