Boomer Expatriates Demand Security

By fnsnews 
Published June 3, 2014

Foreign-born residents joined Mexican nationals in a recent demonstration demanding security for a storied but troubled town. Dressed in white and carrying candles, about 400 people staged a silent march late last week through San Miguel de Allende in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato.
Ruth Kear,  a former U.S. resident who currently lives in San Miguel de Allende, articulated public safety fears held by a growing number of residents which, in her case, is based on personal experience. Kear told a Mexican reporter that she had been robbed three times in her home, including on two occasions by armed and masked thieves.

“They put a pistol to my head and said, ‘Miss, do you want to taste the bullet?’” Kear was quoted.  “I am afraid. Now I have many bad dreams. When I am in my studio, sometimes I see those men.”
The mounting complaints of insecurity contrast sharply with San Miguel de Allende’s commercialized image as a laid-back cultural and historic destination.

The cradle of Mexican independence, San Miguel de Allende was selected as the best city in the world in Conde Nast Traveler magazine’s 2013 reader’s choice poll.  Classified by the Mexican federal government as among the nation’s “magic towns,” San Miguel de Allende has also been designated as a World Heritage Site  by the United Nations.

Over the decades, the small city of 160,383 inhabitants (2010 Census), has attracted a sizable expatriate community drawn from North America,  Europe, Asia and Latin America. An estimated 14,000 local residents are foreign-born, mainly from the United States, but also from Canada, England, Japan, Colombia, and other nations.

Aging retirees from the baby boom generation who retired to San Miguel Allende stand out in the expatriate population.  Read more.