WORKING IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY

WORK IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY

By Peter Fredson

March 28, 2006

It is not my intention to weigh in on the current immigration debate in the U.S. other than to say that George Bush has been careless, negligent and inept at dealing with securing our borders. As I looked at the protest demonstrations on TV, in Los Angeles, most of the several thousand protestors looked like they recently came from some Mexican countryside towns.

That jogged my memory. After WWII I had 4 years of G.I. Bill and searched for some place where $65.00 a month would allow me to live. I could have returned to England to one of the fine universities that had never closed. I could have gone to Canada with many fine universities, within driving range of my home town in Wisconsin.

I visited the VA office where I was shown some alternative places to study. I saw a pamphlet from Mexico City College which had just opened to give opportunity to the many Americans living in Mexico to attend college, and they would also accept G.I.s.

I drove long 4 days to get there, and was very hospitably received. I found that my $65.00 a month would barely allow me to exist, with wise choices of lodging, meals and toiletries. I could even visit a movie house, where for about 10 US cents I could see a double feature of all of the war movies I had missed while being overseas at war. In fact, the movies had subtitles in Spanish which helped me learn conversational Spanish quickly.

I found a small restaurant, Club Brazil, where for about 30 cents I could get a simple but sufficient meal, the Comida Corrida.

Many of the veterans there also barely existed on our stipend, but some found employment as photographers, linotype operators, medical attendants, etc. However, some were discovered by Mexican immigration agents and were forced to leave Mexico because the law forbade them taking Mexican jobs.

I and several friends found extra money in “tourist trapping.” We would hang around some of the luxury hotels in Mexico City to strike up conversation with the many American or foreign tourists. Most of us had traveled widely around Mexico on second and third-class busses. Many had taken sufficient courses in Mexican culture to be able to interpret art, archeology, colonial architecture, Mexican mores, etc.

I had taken several courses in Colonial art from Justino Fernandez, the outstanding authority on the subject. I had also become an avid enthusiast of archaeology and ethnology, and had become quite knowledgeable on small Mexican towns.

So I would offer to take tourists to out-of-the-way places that they would never find by themselves or by guided tour. I had an old Nash, 4 cylinders, and could accommodate 3 or 4 tourists.

I would charge about 30 dollars a day, plus expenses, for guiding tourists to archaeological sites people rarely visited, or to show them the different colonial churches with Plateresque or Churrigueresque facades, or take them to see the various murals that abounded in Mexico City. I took some up to the ascent to Popocatepetl volcano where they could ascend the ash slope up to the snow line.

I knew of several small seaside towns that were little patronized by the great flow of tourism, like Zihuatenejo, for bathing and deep sea fishing. I would take them to Tepoztlan, Tula, Teotihuacan, Zacatenco, or to visit the great statue of Tlaloc that was still lying in a ravine near Coatlinchan. I knew of several hundred places where tourists could walk on cobble-stones, visit rug weavers, pulque-brewers, ceramic artists, etc.

Several times I took tourists on week-end trips to Campeche, Yucatan, Oaxaca, Villahermosa, and other places with magnificent archaeological ruins or colonial architecture. Luckily there were no accidents, no untoward incidents, and in those days there were not many kidnappers or thugs. A few people got sick with dysentery but who didn’t?

I was able to live simply but comfortably, in a Mexican rooming house, for 4 years, when my G.I. Bill money expired. By that time I had acquired both a B.A. and an M.A. at Mexico City College. So my strategy to get an education in an interesting place and meet interesting people paid off handsomely.

I feel that I gave my tourists much more than their money’s worth. They saw and experienced places and sights they never would have visited any other way. I never felt I was depriving any Mexican from work. The tourist guides were generally all booked up. But I always was careful not to come to the attention of Mexican immigration authorities or I would have been physically transported immediately to the border and told not to come back.

I am forever grateful to the Mexican people for their hospitality and friendship. Heck, I even married one of them!