A Few Personal Stories About Mexico's Social Class System
Judicial fights about property ownership, the superiority complex of the upper-class Latino, the servant class on the other end and those in the middle.
I’ve been living in Mexico for over a year now and I’m extremely curious about every detail of this country, its society, and its history. I was born in Peru but lived most of my life in Canada, so I barely ever explored my Latin American side.
Until now…
You can read about my latest project, Bitcoin Queretaro, in its announcement article right here. I’ve always been very passionate about Bitcoin community building so this is just my latest effort to do so in my new home country.
It seems to me, from conversations I’ve had and things I’ve read online, that a question keeps coming back about the two topics that fascinate me the most.
How is Bitcoin adoption going in Mexico?
This is a very complex question and I want to be one to answer it in its most complete form. However, through the process of writing an adequate article that would satisfy readers expressing that wonder, I’ve come to the realization that this can’t be done without first talking about the realities of the country from both a financial and social point of view.
I will make it a three-article series to answer this question, with a different style for each one. This one will be a collection of stories about Mexican society, particularly about its Social Class System, which I feel is essential to communicate in order to talk about the present and future adoption of Bitcoin. The next article will be a data-based post about the history of the Peso currency and the financial reality of Mexican society. Finally, the third one will be a collection of stories, links, and data points about Bitcoin adoption in Mexico.
All these stories are part of a reality I’m trying to communicate around the Social Class System of Latin American society. If we’re trying to make Bitcoin adopted in this country, we need to be able to understand the relevant use cases and since the population is so different across its social classes, we need to be able to understand each one.
A Childhood Story About Peru
When I was an upper-middle-class kid in Peru, my cardiologist father would explain to me that there are people in our country that couldn’t even imagine themselves living like us. We literally earned 100x times more than they did. We never mingled with people that weren’t family or that weren’t like us, of the same class level. It was just the way things were, we would never question it. We would go the private schools, only take private transportation, always have a maid and security at home, would always travel on the weekends or go to the country club. And so much more.
At each end of the year, we would drive a few dozen minutes to the outskirts of Lima to donate our old stuff to poor kids. We wouldn’t give it to donation centers as you’re used to in First World countries, rather we would simply reach the entry of a poor, but not too dangerous neighborhood, open the car’s door and little kids would happily rush to us. We would distribute very simple toys and clothes, but for them, this was the biggest material acquisition they’ve ever had. I wouldn’t think too much of it, just that we were nice people. I didn’t really get it back then.
Twenty years have gone by and here I am, back in Latin America, willing to catch up for my time away from my native region.
Fast forward to 2022
A couple of times a year, I have friends that come visit me here in Queretaro, a flourishing city in the center of Mexico. We go around and for those that it’s their first time in a real Latin American setting (not Cancun), they’re very surprised at how European some Mexicans look, how prestigiously they live, and how educated they are. You would almost believe that you’re in the United States.
You move to what’s considered a third-world country and some people expect your lifestyle drops in value. It’s the other way around. I’ve never lived better in my whole life than I do now, for a lesser cost.
Then we drive for only a few minutes to catch some tacos, and on the way, I point towards a hidden neighborhood that has no electricity, no water system, and in which most houses are not even completely built. Most of the people that live there have never even finished primary school. This neighborhood is called La Caudrilla and here’s its story, which like many others, shows how this country works differently than the one I lived for most of my life, Canada.
A Multi-Year Property Rights Fight
In spring 2022, I used to go daily to a coworking space in Juriquilla, the neighborhood I live in. For $100 USD a month, you have 24-hour access to a shared space with conference call rooms and an infinite coffee supply, which is about a third of the cost of what you would pay across the northern border. Pretty good deal.
During my breaks, I would go on the roof’s terrace for some fresh air while catching the sunlight and I would stare at a hidden neighborhood behind the building. Priorly, I had walked that street on a daily basis for months already and I had never noticed that there was a neighborhood with hundreds of houses hidden right there.
It was clear that the city’s urban planning intended for that neighborhood not to be in regular sight.
How in the middle of an upper-middle-class neighborhood where people earn almost on par with Canadian or even American salaries, is there a hidden shithole? I had a hard time understanding this, since I expected poor neighborhoods to be far, rather than close, as it’s usually the case of urban planning in the first world.
This is a common thing in Latin America, usually, this land has not yet been gentrified or it’s a temporary settlement for construction workers that build the upper-class properties right next door. However, in this case, it was different, this was a multi-year property ownership judicial fight.
In the picture above, you can see a clear demarcation between the upper-class neighborhood houses in white to the left, and the barely built houses to the right. It turns out that the people staying here were sold land that was someone else’s property: 13 hectares in total to a hundred twenty families. It’s a recurrent scam in this country because some families own so much land that they have a hard time watching over it, so scammers just sell it to clueless people that want to relocate here, usually from poorer rural regions. It takes months or even years for the rich family to notice its land has been invaded and by then the poorly built houses are already there.
This case lasted years in court but it was settled in June 2022, when overnight the 120 families were kicked out by hundreds of police officers, unable to even come back to pick up their belongings. Private property rights prevailed and I’m obviously on the side of that, but it’s hard not to feel pity for all those poor people that thought they finally had it and lost it all overnight. I think the scammer is still on the run and free as it’s usually the case for criminals in this weak judicial system country.
This story demonstrates how this country is formed on one side by some that have so much land, that they don’t even care to watch over it on a constant basis, only checking it after many months or years. On the other end, you find people that are so poor and so uneducated that they get scammed out of their life savings into buying a property that has another owner, without being able to do minimal due diligence and in the end finding themselves with nothing.
Let’s take a closer look at the class of people that own the land, but are unable to properly manage it.
The Snobbiness of Upper-Class Latinos
Those that know me, know that I’m not the easiest-going person. I like nice stuff and I’m not settling for a below-average housing experience, so naturally, I moved into the nice upper-middle-class neighborhood. When I traveled to Costa Rica and Southern Mexico, I had a hard time with poor infrastructure so I really wanted to avoid that here, and I did it successfully.
However, if there’s something that has humbled me so far here, has been hanging around with snobby upper-class Latinos. They have so little humbleness in them that I simply understood how different I was from them. They’re so hung up by the fact that they live in a third-world country even though they’re of European descent, that they have to do everything to let you know that they’re rich. But foremost, that they have nothing to do with the darker skin folks to whom they look at with disgust.
I won’t deny that I do hang out with them sometimes because the girls are hot.
Their snobbiness affects the way they talk (like if they had a potato in their mouth), the words they use and do not use, the clothes they wear, the schools and clubs they go to, and the people they know. They absolutely have to let you know the people they know, by their family names. I guess this is particularly bad when they’re young, which is almost all I’ve met. Literally the biggest spoiled brats.
Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people are nice and have potential within those groups, but they’re often overshadowed by the culture that surrounds them: the bubble culture. I guess it’s natural that you have to keep yourself in a bubble when there’s so much insecurity in your country that can target you, but that bubble blinds you to some extent. I’ve met people that are convinced that most of the country has blond hair because they and their friends do, which is completely ridiculous.
The accessibility to wealth without rules from a young age corrupts you, it doesn’t allow you to build character and discipline, which is very easy to see in this society. These people are not that smart or highly educated, because they can always buy off their grades and access to private elite institutions. Once graduated, they will inherit a family business that they will risk poorly managing, but since everything is for sale, they’ll just buy politicians and regulators to remain in control.
Corruption as the Power Tool of the Upper Class
Corruption goes beyond fiat currency, even on a hard money standard you can buy out the government because it’s a cultural problem in the end, one that this region needs to address if it ever wants to reach the state of a truly meritocratic country.
Corruption isn’t just about money or business, it’s about violence. People in the upper-classes levels of this country buy their way out of prison after a homicide. Maybe a guy tried to talk to your girlfriend in the club so you shot him and now it’s in all the newspapers, but you can still get away with it. I won’t drop any names here.
Once again, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me, I don’t for one second believe in the legitimacy of the first world country government, I’m simply trying to communicate the nuances in the present between them and the historical background of this region.
Mexican and Latin American societies in general have always been corrupted to their core, they have always had identity issues, feudal-like social class systems, and racial or class social conflicts. They have never been close to a true meritocratic country. The first-world country at least gave it a shot for the last few decades and it’s now losing itself… but that’s another story.
Understanding their superiority complex is vital if you want to sell them anything, particularly if you’re looking for them to adopt new money, Bitcoin.
Let’s now that a look at the other end of society.
The Perspective of the Worker Class
I haven’t had a close look into the working-class world as much as I have for the upper class. Honestly, I just wouldn’t dare to go to their parties, it seems to me as if it would just be looking for problems. If I ever meet someone that I get along with and they invite me, I could do it but that hasn’t happened yet. I do however get a sense of their perspective through some conversations I’ve had with them in various settings, and what I’ve observed on an everyday basis or when I’ve walked through their neighborhoods.
Every day when I go out of my building, a security guy opens my door. We salute each other and I thank him. Sometimes I come back to my place late at night and I have to wake him up, sleeping on the floor in a very small security room, with sometimes even his wife and his child with him.
In Mexico, it’s very common for people to do 24-hour shifts. You work for a straight day, then you get one day off, then you come back for another triple regular shift. The average salary for such workers is 200 pesos for a 24-hour shift which comes out to $10.66 USD or 50 cents an hour. These guys usually find extra jobs they can do at the same time, such as washing cars or taking your trash out.
I respect the hard work and character of these people, I would not be able to do this but they don’t really have a choice. I would say that at least they get to go home when they’re done working, unlike some.
The Service Room in Mexican Households
After a few months of living in Mexico and trying all sorts of Airbnbs in different cities and neighborhoods, I got a bit tired of moving all my stuff every time I had a new travel plan, so I decided to find a long-term rental with my buddy Tristan.
Every time we visited a new place, they always showed us what they called the Service Room, which is an extra room that’s separated from the rest of the house, very small, and with a bathroom. At first, we would just not understand what they meant by this. Were they referring to the Washer / Dryer room? Maybe something like a storage room?
No, the Service room is the Servant’s room, which is implied you need when looking for an upper-class two-bedroom apartment. Some of these rooms don’t even have windows, and you can not fit a bed larger than a twin size in it.
Personally, I don’t like someone I don’t know living in my house, I feel like it’s an invasion of privacy. I also can figure out that in most scenarios, the servant’s life and work conditions are complete and utter shit. Maybe if I had young kids, I would feel different due to its usefulness, and obviously, I would always force myself to treat them right. However, I just find it weird how important real estate brokers make the Service Room appear when renting an apartment.
In some way, I think it kind of demonstrates the dependency that the superior classes have on the poorer ones. The poorer ones only care about their hard work and making ends meet so that their families can have a better upbringing. They understand their place, that they’re made to work for the rich and that they’re not very educated, and for the most part they seem to be at peace with it. They simply demand a minimum of dignity from others which is understandable.
Those in the Middle
I don’t have many stories about the Middle Class. They represent 40% of the country and they have a pretty good standard of living for what you’d expect in the third world. They have a family car, a computer at home, a bank account, and kids attending university (public and low-cost private), and they have minimal comfort in average neighborhoods.
They’re often professionals, educated, motivated and hardworking. They’re of every race. This is the future and the hope of the country. For the younger generation, they’re usually the smartest and most educated people I’ve talked to.
It All Comes Together Everyday
I hope this post made you understand Mexican society a bit better and that you enjoyed the stories that I’ve lived and told. My goal was to communicate how the different social classes of the country live and behave so that you as a reader and Bitcoiner can understand better how Bitcoin adoption will go in this country.
This country is very diverse, in all its forms: geographically, historically, racially, culturally, politically, militarily, and economically. It’s a very beautiful and intriguing chaos. In the end, it all comes together every day, and it has for hundreds of years. Amidst the differences and the social conflicts, everyone finds a way to live together.
However, this is not the only piece of the puzzle to understand the present and future Bitcoin adoption. Over the next few days, expect the follow-up to this article in which I break down Mexico’s population financial reality backed by data.
In the meantime, feel free to share any feedback with me to improve my future redactions, and subscribe if you haven’t yet. Onto the next one.
Très intéressant