{"id":4059,"date":"2020-11-19T15:39:54","date_gmt":"2020-11-19T15:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/borderlessmag.org\/?p=4059"},"modified":"2022-09-30T12:56:51","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T17:56:51","slug":"el-podcast-de-la-asimilacion-inversa-analiza-lo-que-significa-ser-mexicano-americano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/borderlessmag.org\/es\/2020\/11\/19\/reverse-assimilation-podcast-unpacks-what-it-means-to-be-mexican-american\/","title":{"rendered":"El podcast \"Asimilaci\u00f3n inversa\" analiza lo que significa ser mexicano-americano"},"content":{"rendered":"

Above: Jes\u00fas Herrera modeling Les Jesus, a fashion brand based on traditional Mexican craftsmanship which he co-founded with his husband. Herrera is a fashion designer and model whose family crossed the border without documents when he was six and settled in Rockford, Illinois. Herrera decided to move back to Mexico in 2010 and was one of the 1.1 million Mexican nationals who returned voluntarily between 2010 and 2018. Photo by Andres Navarro<\/span><\/p>\n

Triple your impact today. Between November 1 and December 31 NewsMatch will match your new monthly donation 12x or triple your one-time gift, all up to $5,000.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>\n\t\t\t Donate \n\t\t<\/a><\/h4>\n

Lisa Saldivar ordered lunch on a Mexico City street corner on a cloudy day in August. Her quesadilla came with friendly ribbing from the vendor about her imperfect Spanish. Like many American children of Mexican immigrants, she grew up in a household where family members spoke to her in Spanish and she responded in English.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As a kid trying to fit in as a first-generation Mexican-American in Texas she never expected her Americanized accent would have her trying to fit in all over again as an adult, only this time in Mexico City, Mexico.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Understanding how generations of immigrant families like hers weave themselves into life in the United States is the motivation behind <\/span>Reverse Assimilation<\/span><\/i><\/span>, a podcast that Saldivar created with mixed-media collage artist <\/span>Jay Berrones<\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Saldivar is <\/span>an illustrator and graphic designer<\/span><\/a><\/span> who moved from the United States to Mexico. She\u2019s part of an increase in reverse migration over the last decade that has resulted in an estimated <\/span>1.5 million Americans<\/span><\/a><\/span> currently living in Mexico. <\/span>More people have moved to Mexico<\/span><\/a><\/span> from the United States in recent years than the other way around.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the Americans who move to Mexico are following their undocumented family members. <\/span>Mexican immigrants living in the United States without papers have increasingly returned home<\/span><\/a><\/span> in the wake of the U.S. economy\u2019s <\/span>slow recovery from the 2008 recession<\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span> Others are <\/span>retirees stretching their pensions<\/span><\/a><\/span> or remote workers looking to enjoy the warmer climate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"rodeo,

Lisa Saldivar and Lindsey Saldivar attend a rodeo in Houston, Texas in February 1992. Photo courtesy of Lisa Saldivar.<\/p><\/div>\n

Still others, like Saldivar, move to Mexico to try and connect with their family\u2019s roots. When she moved in 2016, she hoped to fill in what she felt was missing in her identity. But the reality of that effort, she discovered, is complicated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the U.S. it always felt like I wasn’t American enough, and as soon as I got here it felt like I wasn’t Mexican enough,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When a truck lumbered by, meticulously packed with a mountain of stuff stacked at least twelve feet high, Saldivar burst out laughing in the middle of the street.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI remembered all the fights my grandma and my dad would get into when we would go on vacation, because they would do that \u2014 Jenga together this crazy situation,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m seeing where my parents and grandparents had learned these things that in the U.S. were just something I wouldn\u2019t want to tell the kids at school.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

These moments of frustration and revelation are the subject of <\/span>Reverse Assimilation<\/span><\/i>, which<\/span> got its start thanks to Saldivar and Berrones meeting<\/span> after renting studios in the artists\u2019 space Los Catorce \u2014 a crumbling and technically condemned mansion in the San Rafael neighborhood of Mexico City.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After months of tentative greetings of \u201c<\/span>Qu\u00e9 onda?<\/span><\/i>\u201d\u2014 each assuming the other was born and raised in Mexico \u2014 they finally realized that both had actually grown up in Houston and moved to Mexico City. Both made the decision partly out of a need to answer questions about their heritage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Lisa Saldivar and Jay Berrones, co-creators of the podcast Reverse Assimilation, on May 18, 2020 at artists\u2019 space Los Catorce \u2014 a crumbling and technically condemned mansion in the San Rafael neighborhood. Photo by Alicia Vera<\/p><\/div>\n

The day they realized that they talked for four hours.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI actually think two or three hours in I was like, \u2018Do you want water?\u2019 because we were talking nonstop,\u201d Saldivar says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole conversation was littered with, \u2018I thought I was the only one,\u2019\u201d says Berrones, a third-generation Mexican-American whose family was crossed by the border when Mexico <\/span>lost half of its territory to the United States in 1848.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

He identified with Saldivar\u2019s sense of cultural erasure over generations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my mom was growing up in my grandparent\u2019s house, you couldn’t turn anywhere without seeing the Virgen de Guadalupe,\u201d he says. \u201cBut she taught me, \u2018We don\u2019t do that.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the audio archive\u2019s first installment of six episodes, released in September, Saldivar and Berrones host candid conversations with four fellow Mexican-American artists from southern California, the Midwest, Miami, and the borderlands who have found themselves living in Mexico City.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were surrounded by other Mexican-American artists, and when this topic would come up at parties, we\u2019d see other people\u2019s eyes light up; they\u2019d have a lot to say,\u201d says Saldivar. \u201cWe were already having these conversations, all we needed to do was provide a structure for it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n