Job Discussion Forums

[scott wilhelm]

Does anyone know how available teaching jobs may be in Chapala, Ajicic or any of the other towns near the lake ? I know there is a large American/ Canadian retirement community there, which makes me wonder if there may be a number of Mexicans interested in learning English. As I understand it, Mexicans who can speak English have an advantage in obtaining employment in tourist or retirement areas. Any info on the job prospects in this area would be much appreciated.

[moonraven]

Scott, my best advice is to steer clear of those places. For at least 15 years those communities have been very polarized. I made the mistake of staying a night or two in Ajiic in 1992--which was enough time for me to be shown a "community newsletter" which introduced itself by saying "You don't need to learn Spanish here; we're all Americans...." and proceeded to increase its level of offensiveness. I talked to quite a few locals in both Ajiic and Chapala; as I was making a photo series of churches in Mexico, I wandered around by myself in areas where the Anglos didn't go. (Anglos are never seen in the street in a pack of fewer than 4.) Locals talked pretty openly to me about their resentment of folks whose presence had driven up the cost of living in those communities. The final straw came when I was packing up my rental VW Beetle and a group of men from the US approached me and began to complain about how things were not as dirt cheap as they thought they would be, etc. I suggested that they go back to the US--that unless they were willing to change cultures and live among Mexican people they had no business coming to Mexico....Well, you get my drift, I hope. Unless you are over 65 and committed to wearing the garb of the Ugly American, I don't think you would fit in.

[inmexico]

Scott- I totally agree with moonraven on this. The "large community" is almost the entire community now. There are a couple of Mexican professionals there (doctors etc) but they are bi-lingual already. If you are interested in the general area, Guadalajara or Leon would be viable options.

[scott wilhelm]

Thank you both for the replies. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this. But I'm sorry to hear that this is the situation in that area. I'm not retirement age (currently I'm 47) and I hope I don't fit the bill of "the ugly American". I speak some Spanish, well more than the amount needed for travel purposes and I don't want Mexico to become a south of the border version of the U.S.. I'm in agreement with you, Americans have no business going to live in Mexico if they expect it to conform to their standards of what it should be. The reason I asked about the Chapala area is that my Mom is also thinking of making the move to Mexico and she likes the area-pretty lake, nice mountains and great weather. She doesn't meet the requirements for being an ugly American either. She just has this almost irrational fear of learning to speak a foriegn language and thought she may be able to make friends easier with people who speak English. She thinks she is just too old (75) to learn to speak Spanish. I have tried to convince her that learning enough Spanish to be conversant is not all that difficult. But she insists she is not wired for languages. She was much too nervous to ask a vendor selling dolls in Ajicic "cuanto cuesta ? " I'll keep working on her though. Guadalajara sounds much better as a place to live or work. Any other cities in Mexico that are smaller than Guadalajara but still large enough to have decent job prospects ?
Thanks for your help Moonraven and Inmexico.
Scott

[moonraven]

What kind of job are you looking for? (Language school, primary school, junior high, high school, university?)

[inmexico]

For work purposes and for living I would suggest a little further south. Morelia and Queretaro are both nice cities. They have an abundance of language schools and universities/colleges, high schools etc.
San Luis Potosi was one of my favorite cities as well. It's hard to get an accurate read on the population, but all 3 are somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000.
There is a lot of industry in these areas, hence the demand for schools and English teachers. Leon would fit into this catagory as well, but I don't think it's quite as nice.......just my opinion of course. Maybe we should start a thread on favourite cities outside of the "tourist zones". I would certainly include San Miguel Allende as a tourist zone.