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A man bends a pickleball net in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. American retirees gather at the Municipal Sports Center several days a week to practice the popular sport of seniors in the United States. (Luis Antonio Rojas / For the Washington Post)
SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, Mexico – The Spanish brothers brought faith to this colonial city in the highlands of central Mexico.
The 18th century silver barons built their mansions.
Now comes the pickleball invasion.
It started with only a few American retirees. Today, two dozen players occupy the grounds of the municipal sports center almost every morning, swinging paddles with plastic balls. There are so many clubs in Mexico dedicated to American sport that a tournament was held here last year.
"It was a crazy house," said Victor Guzmán, a 67-year-old entrepreneur from Charlotte, who helped organize the event.
President Trump routinely attacks the flow of migrants crossing the Mexican border into the United States. The growing number of people heading in the opposite direction has been less noticeable.
The Mexican Statistical Institute estimated this month that the US-born population in the United States stood at 799,000 people, about four times as much as in 1990. That's probably a nugget. -enumeration. The United States Embassy in Mexico City estimates the actual number at 1.5 million or more.
They form a mixed group. These are digital natives who can work as easily from Puerto Vallarta as Palo Alto. They are The children born in the United States – nearly 600,000 of them – came back with their parents born in Mexico. And they are retirees like Guzmán, who settled in this city five years ago and who has now become the king of pickleball in San Miguel.
[Despite Trump’s tariff and border threats, Mexico is now the largest U.S. trading partner]
Victor Guzmán visits a house for sale in San Miguel. He and his wife left Charlotte in 2014 to settle in the city. (Luis Antonio Rojas / For the Washington Post)
If the thousands of Mexicans who move are taken into account, the flow of migrants from the United States to Mexico is probably more important than the flow of Mexicans to the United States.
US immigrants are injecting money into local economies, renovating historic homes and changing the dynamics of Mexican classrooms.
"This is starting to become a very important cultural phenomenon," said Marcelo Ebrard, Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs, in an interview. "Like the Mexican community in the United States."
And yet, he said, the Mexican authorities do not know much about the size and needs of their larger group of immigrants. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked him to change that.
While the United States is deeply divided about immigration, US immigrants have been widely welcome. In San Miguel, where about 10% of the city's 100,000 inhabitants are American citizens, Mayor Luis Alberto Villareal delivers his annual state of the municipality address in English and Spanish.
Thanksgiving is celebrated a few weeks after the day of the dead in Mexico. Restaurants have adopted the "American timing" – serve dinner at the unholy hour of 18 hours. – the mayor's reports.
"Despite the fact that Donald Trump insults my country every day, we welcome the whole international community, starting with the Americans, with open arms and with their hearts," said Villareal.
Mexican authorities say that many Americans are probably undocumented. In general, they exceeded their six-month visa. But the government has shown little concern.
"We have never pressured them to have their documents in order," said Ebrard.
Generally, offenders pay a small fine.
Villereal shrugged.
"We love people who come to work and help the city's economy, as do Mexicans in the United States."
[Their ancestors fled U.S. slavery for Mexico. Now they’re looking north again.]
The Americans Emily and Myles Standish are walking in San Miguel. (Luis Antonio Rojas / For the Washington Post)
San Miguel de Allende is located about 250 km northwest of Mexico City, on a plateau of one kilometer high where the sun cajoles the bougainvillea so that they burst in flamboyant colors and spread on the walls . American Veterans began moving here after World War II to study at the local art institute on the GI Bill. In the last 30 years, expatriates have flocked, delighted by the city's paved cobbled streets, its flamboyant Gothic church and its sunset-colored houses: dark pink, peach, yellow, orange.
The landscape is not the only attraction. Given the dollar's strength against the Mexican peso, even an American with social security and a modest pension can rent a high-ceilinged apartment, hire a housekeeper and go to the restaurant most nights.
"You can live here with $ 2,000 or $ 3,000 a month and live well," Guzmán said.
Technology has reduced the distance between countries. In the 1980s, expatriate author Tony Cohan contacted his daughter in New York City by going to the office of the "larga distancia", where an operator telephoned, as he told in his famous memoir "On Mexican Time".
Today, 66-year-old Los Angeles-based Bill Slusser does part-time marketing for US customers without leaving his home: "The Internet allows that to happen.
Since the entry into force of NAFTA, Mexico has had opportunities such as Walmart and Office Depot.
"For things you can not find," said Slusser, "you just bought them from Amazon."
So many Americans live here that there is no need to speak Spanish. A range of activities is offered to English speakers: the Rotary Club, the circle of quilters, dance clubs, Alcoholics Anonymous. Expatriates head dozens of charity groups, mentor Mexican students, help provide clean drinking water and serve meals to poor abuelitas.
[U.S. reaches deal with Mexico, Canada to lift steel, aluminum tariffs]
Bill Slusser, in the center, sings with friends, Fil Formicola, on the left, and Dilia Suriel in a bar in San Miguel. Slusser has built a community of friends with whom he sings karaoke on the weekends. (Luis Antonio Rojas / For the Washington Post)
Pamela Gould and Stan Allen dance in a soup kitchen organized by US citizens in the precincts of the parish church of St. Michael the Archangel of San Miguel. (Luis Antonio Rojas / For the Washington Post)
"Since this is a relatively small city, it's very easy to meet people and do what you want," Slusser said last Friday. a small cafe. It was a karaoke party.
"Por favor, tortillas chips!" Shouted a New York lawyer.
The American population in Mexico is still much smaller than the Mexican immigrant population north of the border, estimated at about 11 million. But discreetly, Americans print their mark on Mexican cities.
About 35,000 Americans live in the seaside resort of Puerto Vallarta (destination of the Love Boat in the old television series). About 20,000 Americans live near Lake Chapala in central Mexico, according to the US Embassy.
Americans are renovating homes in the historic center of Mérida, capital of Yucatan. They enjoy the views of the Pacific Ocean from the homes of Gringo Hill in Sayulita. There are so many Americans in Mexico's trendy Condesa neighborhood that guitarists are walking around outside the cafes, ask for advice in English.
For all images of used Central America Crossing Mexico in caravans, the vast majority of immigrants from this country – about 75% – come from the United States.
Walking through San Miguel, you can see the influence of strangers: million-dollar homes with chef kitchens and built-in baths not far from local raw brick and unpainted brick dwellings.
[Threatened by Trump, exhausted by caravans, Mexico struggles with migrant surge]
A traditional puppet character known as Mojiganga dances beside the Allende Garden in San Miguel. (Luis Antonio Rojas / For the Washington Post)
But there seems to be little resentment from the Americans.
At the annual construction workers' day this month, about 20 workers gathered around folding tables installed on the patio of a half-finished house in a gated community in San Miguel. Following the Mexican tradition, the owners of the house invited them to a party, accompanied by a lunch consisting of pork, chicken with tinga, beans, tortillas and beer, as well as an evening meal. a group of Norteno.
"Eighty percent of our customers are foreigners," said Luis Camarena, a Mexican architect working on the house. "Of these 80%, 90% are American.
"For them" – Camerena gestured towards the workers – "it means work."
***
Trump is not wrong about the increasing numbers of migrants reaching the southern border of the United States. But they are more likely to be Central Americans than Mexicans.
Since 2015, census data shows, more Mexicans have returned home every year that moved to the United States. Data for 2017, the most recent year for which figures are available, showed a net decrease of 300,000 Mexican immigrants to the United States.
Some of the Mexicans heading south were deported or felt increasingly unwelcome in the United States. Others have been brought home by better opportunities. Mexico's population growth slowed as education levels increased, reducing the competition for jobs.
Many returning Mexicans brought small Americans with them.
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Katerina Barron, daughter Sedona, age 3, and her son Adero, age 6, play hide-and-seek on the roof of their home in San Miguel. The father of the children, Jesús, was deported in 2017 and the family was transferred to San Miguel. (Luis Antonio Rojas / For the Washington Post)
They are children like Sedona Barron, 3 years old, and her brother Adero, 6 years old. The brothers and sisters arrived in San Miguel two years ago after their father, Jesús, was deported. He too was a stranger to this country; He had moved to the United States with his family illegally at the age of five. He had married an American, but a conviction for drunken driving prevented him from legalizing his status.
The move from Arizona was particularly difficult for Adero.
"He started kindergarten in Mexico without Spanish," said his mother, Katerina. "He was just terrified to speak Spanish. He felt very lost in the beginning. "
She also barely spoke the language.
In some cities that have traditionally sent migrants to the United States, children of US-born returnees now account for 10 or 15 percent of student enrollment, according to Andrew Selee, head of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.
"It's like East L.A.", he said.
In the past, when waves of Mexicans came back from the United States, they were usually men, like the guest workers known as "Braceros" employed on American farms from the 1940s to the 1960s.
Now, many of those who come back are families.
"One of the biggest challenges is that Mexican schools are not ready to welcome children who have started their education in the United States in English," said Silvia Giorguli, Demographer and President of the Capital College of Mexico.
Unlike the United States, Mexico has not always welcomed many immigrants. Less than 1% of the population was born abroad. After a decades-long wave of Mexican migration that has transformed the United States, she said, it is now Mexico that faces a dilemma.
"How do you integrate Americans?"
[Mexico’s president just says no to U.S. cash to fight drug crime]
Sedona Barron walks with a balloon at a mother's party at her school in San Miguel. (Luis Antonio Rojas / For the Washington Post)
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