Yo, Destroyer of Worlds August 23, 2022
“Me he convertido en la muerte el destructor de mundos.”
Bhagavad Gita
Oaxaca Post reports what I hear often—I am ruining this place. I heard the same thing when I moved to San Cristóbal, indeed everywhere I have lived in Mexico. At least the Trinidadian capital of Port of Spain was gracious enough to let me know that the city was irrevocably screwed up long before I arrived. Port of Spain has few tourists and many fewer immigrants, as it can only be reached over water, and it is exceedingly difficult to obtain a visa. This is not the case in Mexico, which is why Mexico’s population of immigrants (the fancy ones call themselves expats) continues to explode, wreaking havoc on local economies and a predominantly poor citizenry. These people are insect-eaters for a reason.
In Oaxaca de Juarez, the growth has been remarkable, especially in the northern barrios of downtown, in which the tree-lined streets and refurbished colonial architecture speak directly to old-world charm. As Oaxaca Post observes, “The tanneries of the past are now occupied by hotels, hostels, gourmet restaurants, boutique shops, and the houses have been transformed into numerous cafes.” Oaxaca’s elite has sold off its possessions and planted its wealth elsewhere, leaving a very different kind of elite to take its place and transform its functionality. The nighttime graffiti artists highlight this development with graphic invitations for me to go back where I come from.
Although there are no firm statistics available regarding the city’s demographics, the published numbers for the State are telling enough: 22,659 foreign immigrants reside in Oaxaca, which is equivalent to 0.55% of the State’s population. This is an increase of 403% compared to what was recorded in 2000. While much of this growth occurred during the pandemic, when other countries’ draconian policies fell into sharp relief and digital nomadism became a bonafide phenomenon, there has always been a special mystique associated with Oaxaca. Mexicans feel it intrinsically, but international interest has been consistently strong, and not only for the culture, the visual art, the food (7 moles!), the comfortable climate, and the surf. The place is a destination.
For ages, everyone raved about Oaxaca—from DH Lawrence to Frida Kahlo to Oliver Sacks and all the way to María Sabina and her psychedelic mushroom tours. Some of the bigger ocean waves on the planet break only a few hours away the city, internet is good, the weather is like Santa Cruz, California, but with the temperate altitude of Denver. The food is great. Many people want to live here, most of them are escaping something. Of course Oaxaca de Juarez is the choice! It is sad, yet makes perfect sense. This place is loved not wisely but too well.
As reported by Oaxaca Post, the tragedy is revealed through so many individual stories: “The case of the artist Demetrio Barrita, who in 2001 paid a thousand pesos for his shop, and saw how in fifteen years it grew to ten thousand, that led him to abandon it. The same place, by 2021 it was already rented for 20 thousand pesos, figures that can be considered very exorbitant”. The influx of outsiders, of a very particular socio-economic type, has created the problem.
Mexico in general, and Oaxaca in particular, is suffering one immigration crisis on top of another. North Americans, South Americans, Europeans, Australians, even Indians and Pakistanis are amounting to quite an economic threat, particularly if their gentrification continues to force Oaxaqueños to move away from the city. The outsiders may be feeling the pinch of inflation, but for local residents the effect is devastating, a real step backward.
Chiapas may be the poorest state in Mexico, but Oaxaca, population 4 million, is not far behind. And if the gringos were not trouble enough, Central America’s civil and environmental strife still accounts for the most arrivals. That is to say, the average-median foreigner in this State comes not from al Norte but from either Guatemala or Honduras. And this data only includes those here legally, which I still technically am for another month.
Oaxaca is feeling the tension created by so many newcomers. It happened like this in Puerto Morelos, and then again in San Cristobal. Something about a place getting cherished to death, accelerating demand, until no one can pay for anything and the very fabric of society frays. The United States has its share of those cities—from San Francisco to Seattle to Salt Lake. Living has become unaffordable. Culture starves. Oaxaqueños’ loss will be felt throughout Mexico, and probably repeated.
At one time, in Yucatan and Trinidad, my writing project made me a witness to the diaspora of global immigrants; but since 2020, first in Chiapas and now here, I increasingly see myself as part of the damaging flow. I am become the diaspora. Robert Oppenheimer once invoked the Bhagavad Gita verse to describe the nuclear age, “I am become death, destroyer of worlds,” where a city could be obliterated—in an instant—at the mere push of a finger. Yet there is more than one way to wreck a city and render it uninhabitable. Immigrants like me just do not work as fast as Vishnu.