Friday, September 7, 2007

Homesick junkies

"'Los mexicanos no saben emigrar: todos quieren regresar el próximo jueves a ver a su abuelita', le decía Jean-Pierre, y aunque Julio ya llevara veinticuatro años fuera, tenía que aceptar que no, la estancia nunca había tenido la contundencia de una decisión tomada sino el aire incierto de quien avanza sin rumbo fijo y dobla esquinas, del doctotado en Italia al Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos en La Haya..."

Juan Villoro
El testigo

It's funny. Even though nearly half a million of us flee Mexico every year, we're still defined as homesick junkies. Truth is, we're helpless too. "Mexico lindo y querido, si muero lejos de ti, que digan que estoy dormido y que me traigan aquí". Top that.
Many Mexicans living abroad are always longing to go back home. Dreaming of undoing the journey someday is such an addiction for us that we spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars on it. We build up entire towns in Mexico just hoping for coming back one day. Needless to say, that is just a dream.
Homesickness is not an exclusive Mexican illness, though. Check the answers some 67 LinkedIn users gave to the question Can family be globalized? and you'll find out we're not alone out there, in Planet Nostalgia.
Anyway. Is it true we Mexicans do not know how to emigrate?

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