Category: Mexico
Don’t go to Mexico.
Those are the words that are said on repeat with most people you meet. Why? No good reason, just other people’s stereotypes of the country. That’s why.
Growing up, I was used to facing that. Don’t go to Los Angeles. There are gangs. Coming to LA? Better save up because Los Angeles is wicked expensive. You’re visiting LA? Everything smells like pee. Whatever people hear on the news or experience once in their lives becomes a dictating factor of whether or not an area is excellent. Even though some places can be so much more than the smallest aspect of what someone sees, that horrible experience becomes its label. Before someone even has a chance to experience something for themselves, they’re already assaulted by someone else’s bad experience, and they’re trapped from seeing it themselves.
Don’t go to Mexico.
This is the land of drug lords and gangs. This is where my friend’s sister’s best friend’s cousin, twice removed, step-uncle lost his kidney in a gambling match. This is the home where people sell their kids for candy, for other people’s kids, and for that uncle’s kidney. Yet, for a country so close to the US border, Mexico seems to be the country of myth and folklore.
People’s perception of Mexico stems from a mixture of sensationalist news stories and a bored teen who had nothing to gossip about one evening during dinner. To most people in Mexico, it is one terrible experience they had in some white-washed resort. The more people tell you not to visit Mexico, the more you realize that not a lot of people know what Mexico is.
I wanted to go to Mexico for a long time, and whenever I mentioned I wanted to go, I was bombarded with a series of reasons not to go. El Chapo, gangs, guns, etc., govern the streets of Mexico City, so I won’t be safe going there. But after a series of mass shootings in America and a global pandemic, I thought it wouldn’t be as bad as what most people said.
Because I have a better chance of dying here than I do trying to live somewhere else.
So my husband and I decided to risk it all and hopped on a plane to Mexico City. While I wasn’t worried about what everyone warned me about, I was apprehensive about my ability to eat being vegan. Would there be enough food for me? Would anyone understand that I don’t eat animal products?
The truth is I had nothing to fear. Mexico, especially Mexico City, is a vegan haven, and I was the lucky benefactor to receive it for a week.
