Mexicans protest against tourists and Gentification

The first of the first of several recent protests for anthemagement in Mexico City was not accidental – July 4, US Independence Day.

The demonstrators gathered at Mexico Park in the Condes District – the epicenter of the Gentification in the Mexican capital – to protest a number of complaints.

Most were angry with excessive rental hikes, unregulated holiday remote and endless influx of Americans and Europeans in the modern neighborhoods of the city such as Condes, Roma and La Juarez, forcing long -term inhabitants.

In the condes alone, estimates suggest that up to every five homes is already short -term Let or tourist housing.

Others also cited more prosaic changes, such as restaurants menus in English or soft hot sauces in Taco, to take care of sensitive foreign panels.

But as it was moving through the gentrified streets, the peaceful protest initially became ugly.

Radical demonstrators attacked cafes and boutique shops aimed at tourists, breaking windows, intimidating customers, spraying graffiti and chanting “Fuera Gringo!”, So “Gringos out!”

At his next daily press conference, President Claudia Shainbaum condemned violence as “xenophobic”.

“No matter how legitimate the reason is, which is the case with genetration, the request cannot be simply to say” Get! “To people from other nationalities within our country,” she said.

They masked radicals and agitators aside, the motivation for most people who turned out to be on July 4 were stories like Erica Aguilar.

After more than 45 years from her family, which hires the same apartment in Mexico City, the beginning of the end came with a knock on the door in 2017.

Long-term residents of the Prim building, an architectural gem from the 1920s, located in La Juarez District, are visited by employees, squeezed expulsion documents.

Erika, the biggest daughter, recalls the shocking news: “They came to every apartment in the building and told us that we had until the end of the month to free the premises, as they would not renew their rental contracts.

“You can imagine my mother’s face,” Erica adds, her voice hesitates for a moment. “She has lived here since 1977”

The owners sold to a real estate company. But they gave the residents a definitive, though unrealistic proposal.

“We were told that if we were able to raise 53 million peso ($ 2.9 million; $ 2.1 million) in two weeks, we could keep the building,” she recalls with a hollow laughter.

“This is a wealth! The new apartments were available for about one to 1.5 million peso ($ 50,000 to $ 80,000) then.”

Today, her old home is covered by tarpaulin and skeleton, as the construction team makes it luxury “one, two and three beds apartments intended for short and medium -term rental”, boasts the company’s website.

“This is not a construction for people like me,” Erika – a newspaper designer, “commented roughly. “This is a short -term rental in dollars. In fact, before we are forced, we have already started to see the rents are charged in dollars in some buildings here.”

Erika and her family now live so far from the city center, they are officially in the neighboring country, almost two hours of public transport. This is what activist Sergio Gonzalez calls “a loss of right in central place, with everything that includes.”

His group has registered more than 4,000 cases of “forced displacement of residents with roots” from La Juarez District in the last decade. He was one of them.

“We are faced with what we call urban war,” he tells one of the next protests on anti -genertery, held after July 4.

“What is controversial is the very reason – who does it and who has no rights to this ground.” Most of the residents, forced by its neighborhood, failed to stay in the city, he says. “They have lost rights that are protected under the city’s constitution.

“The first apartment I rented here cost about 4,000 pesos a month in 2007,” Sergio explains. “Today, the same apartment costs more than 10 times more. It’s outrage. It’s pure speculation.”

In increasing anger, Mayor of Mexico City Clara Brugada has revealed a 14 -point plan designed to regulate rents prices, protect long -term residents and build new social housing at affordable prices.

But for Sergio and thousands like him, the mayor’s plan came too late. He believes that the administration must do more in order to cope with Gentification in Mexico at its core.

“We have a local and federal government that continues to promote a neoliberal economic model that has not changed,” Sergio said.

“As much as they have increased the social security safety network for people, which I personally think is very good, this has not changed the economic paradigm through which they manage.”

He called the measures of the mayor “palliatives” and the case of “closing the door of the barn after the horse is fixed”.

Claudia Shainbaum critics say she failed to deal with the problem when she was mayor of the capital and actually actively lured foreigners to move to Mexico City by signing a partnership agreement with Airbnb to strengthen tourism and digital nomadism in 2022.

Erika directs the finger of wines in a number of people for the cataclysms of her family – the former owners of the building for the sale of a real estate development company, the city government for not protecting the long -term residents, even the tenants themselves for not acting more recently over the creeping genetification that is being held around them.

However, she does not particularly blame the foreigners who have flown to Mexico in their wheels, especially around the coronavirus pandemic. “If I had the means to live better elsewhere, I would probably do it,” she reasoned, “and tourism was good for Mexico, it is a source of income.”

Yet many others, including many of the last marches, blame the last American and European arrival – at least partly. They accuse them of being deaf to Mexican customs, failing to learn Spanish or in many cases even pay taxes.

The wave of well -arranged Americans who head south is especially ghostly for some when it is contrary to the raw Trump administration to Mexican and other immigrants to the United States. Immigration is a problem when traveling south to north, but obviously well in the opposite direction, activists argue.

Contrary to the protest on July 4th, a wide esplanade in Mexico Park, graffiti call for “Yankees Out!” Early morning boxing and salsa classes are also whitened, not in English, not in Spanish, not in Spanish.

Given the costs of life and polarized policy in the US, drawing on the streets of the condes is obvious.

“Quiet, passable, the park is obviously a great lot for people. It’s calm. We really liked it,” says Richard Elsobux during a short trip to Mexico City with his wife Alexis of Portland, Oregon.

As they pass through the Mexican capital, they admit that they have half a mind to move here one day. “Obviously, we don’t want to contribute to the genetration,” Alexis says, acknowledging the extent of the problem.

“But you have to have a good job in the US and obviously the dollar goes a lot here. So, I can understand the attractiveness – especially for those who can work remotely.”

Richard, who works for a large sportswear company in the United States, says “costs of life in America are too high” and is too often based on the idea of ​​working next to your 70s.

However, they both think it is possible to move the right way. “If you treat those around you with respect and try to be part of the community, it goes much further than trying to make your own,” Richard says.

“That’s right,” Alexis agrees. “Learn the language. Pay your taxes!”

Still, the speed of change in Mexico City has left sacrifices in the last decade.

Erika’s family life has been spinning on the axis for several months, and her mother has been struggling with depression. As we wander through her former neighborhood streets in La Juarez, the memories are flooded.

“It was a great bar called La Alegría, there was Tortillería (Tortilla Shop), tlapalería (hardware store), I used to buy candy in this place when I was little,” says Erica, pointing to another store.

“I miss the people, the community. There are no longer families or children here.”

Most of these small businesses are not replaced by hip cafes and expensive dining establishments.

“I think La Juarez’s soul died a little,” she complains. “You have lived in a forest and gradually the trees are uprooted and then you suddenly realize that you are living in the desert.”