Pod Insights Snap Judgment In Search of a Black Utopia - Snap Classic About this episode Adizah Eghan noticed an interesting trend on social media: everyone seemed to be living it up in Tulum, Mexico. Some were flocking there to have a good time, while others were seeking something much deeper: they wanted to escape racism and seek refuge with like-minded people. Adizah traveled to Mexico to experience the vibes of Tulum for herself — and also dig into why Black people are seeking refuge in a small fishing town south of Cancun.
This piece comes to us from our friends at VICE News Reports. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vice-news-reports/id1525769448 VICE has so many amazing stories, make sure you check out their podcast!
This episode contains explicit language, sensitive listeners please be advised.
Special thanks to Nubia Younge, Patricia Talley, and all those in Tulum!
This episode was produced by Adizah Eghan and edited by Kate Osborn and James T. Green with help from Annie Aviles and Stephanie Kariuki. The original score is by Kyle Murdock.
Snap Classic - Season 17 – Episode 5
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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2:16 Glynn Washington? Okay, so recently, maybe it's the war on drugs that morphed into a war on black and brown people, or a war on terror that morphed into a war on black and brown people, perhaps locking kids in cages that morphed into... Look, I don't know which straw broke the camel's back, but it felt like, all of a sudden, friends of mine, dear friends from different parts of my life, started looking in earnest to relocate, away from the United States, to take their kids and live somewhere else. Somewhere they didn't have to carry so heavy a burden of racism, of oppression, of fear, of economic insecurity.
2:57 Glynn Washington? And instead of talking a big game about how they were gonna move someday, they just left. Started scattering to foreign shores, sending back cheery Facebook messages and actual postcards. And for a long while, I thought it was just my circle. Because my friends are all strange, wacky people. But it turns out that this thing... This thing is far bigger than my tiny band of misfits. So today on Snap Judgment, we proudly present "In Search of a Black Utopia", a search for a better life, perhaps much closer than you imagined.
3:41 Glynn Washington? Please, make sure your seatbacks and tray tables are in their full, upright positions, and all carry-on luggage is stowed under the seat and firm you. Why? Because you're listening to Snap Judgment.
4:19 Glynn Washington? Now then. Former snapper Adisa Egan. Once a snapper, always a snapper. She's doing big things now. And Adisa, she's been hearing these rumblings about people taking off, leaving the U.S. of they. But instead of simply waving farewell, Adisa, she decided to investigate this moment by taking a trip of her own.
4:43 Glynn Washington? And I want to give a bit of a language warning. This story has black folk talking about their actual experience. The N-word and other real people language does come up. Adisa, take it away.
5:00 Speaker 01 So, last summer, over Labor Day weekend, I was minding my business at home when I got a text from my sister. She was in Tulum, Mexico for the weekend, and she sent me a video that her friend recorded.
5:17 Speaker 01 It was of Meg the Stallion. They ran into her at a restaurant in Tulum. WAP had just come out. And in the video, Megan is wearing a short blue wig and lime green bikini. She's mouthing the words to her song and twerking.
5:37 Speaker 01 After watching that video, I felt like I started to see Tulum everywhere.
5:44 Speaker 02 We are international, honey. We are in Mexico. We are on vacation. We are in Tulum.
5:50 Speaker 01 I would see vacations in Tulum. Me and my boyfriend are going to Mexico to celebrate our fourth year being together. Birthday trips to Tulum. Sad season, period, it's over. Hi, birthday, girl. Look at the glow. Y'all see? Look at the bag.
6:08 Speaker 03 So I'm really having so much fun in Tulum. I'm having a great birthday, guys.
6:14 Speaker 01 And Tulum on the Black travel accounts I follow. Good morning, guys. It is time to explore Tulum. I saw people going out at night.
6:25 Speaker 03 It's not too good. We drank, we danced off y'all.
6:27 Speaker 01 People relaxing at the beach or sitting by the pool.
6:30 Speaker 03 And all that good stuff, but we're sitting out here by the pool.
6:33 Speaker 01 Whatever they were doing, they were having a good time. So my heart is just warmed from being in Tulum. And I started to wonder,
6:44 Speaker 01 what did all these people know that maybe I didn't? Why Tulum?
6:53 Speaker 01 And so instead of sitting in my house and asking all these questions.
6:57 Speaker 04 Why does Tulum feel like it's so hot right now? Why does it feel like that's where I want to go?
7:02 Speaker 01 I decided to go to Tulum. Low-key, not even low-key, kind of high-key. It's kind of like a Black renaissance right now.
7:11 Speaker 05 It is time. It is past time. Justice must be served.
7:15 Speaker 02 Black Lives Matter movement was a lot. People needed a different environment for their health, their mental health.
7:25 Speaker 05 We are saying now that Black Lives Matter. So if you can't own that as your own truth, your voice needs to be silenced. You need to sit down somewhere.
7:37 Speaker 01 This is Vice News Reports.
7:42 Speaker 01 I'm Adisa Ekin.
7:43 Speaker 04 What are you doing? I'm cleaning myself.
7:47 Speaker 01 I'm cleaning my energies.
7:50 Speaker 01 It's so weird to be carrying radio equipment on the beach.
8:00 Speaker 01 Around the time that I got that video of Meg Thee Stallion in the summer of 2020, I was feeling confined and a little depressed. I was in need of some relief. I had a friend who told me that what I needed was to take a break and escape. She also mentioned Tulum. She said there were lots of Black people moving there. They were working remotely and getting together on the weekends. I pictured some sort of a Black utopia.
8:35 Speaker 01 And I was intrigued. So I went to Google.
8:43 Speaker 01 And I typed in, "black people, Tulum."
8:50 Speaker 01 Right. We are live and we're gonna give people time. I found a website, several Facebook groups and Facebook Lives featuring black people who had moved to Tulum, Playa del Carmen, and Mexico in general. They were people who left, in part because of the political and social climate in the US. And it wasn't the first time that this had happened. I just want people to understand that this is a continuum, right? Mexico has always been a place for black people to seek refuge. Going back as far as the 19th century, I found stories of enslaved Africans seeking refuge in Mexico. I knew of the artists who spent formative years in the country:
9:34 Speaker 01 Lorraine Hansberry, Audre Lorde, and Debbie Allen. Audre Lorde wrote about how seeing other brown faces in such great numbers was an affirmation.
9:52 Speaker 01 The whole idea of escaping to Tulum was so much bigger than having a drink on the beach, because I knew that Tulum offered well-being. It's a place for self-reflection, good vibes, and healing. All things that I desperately needed. And there was nothing I wanted more than to find a black utopia. And I was still scared of COVID, but by this point, I knew how to protect myself and others.
10:28 Speaker 01 Cool, I'm in there. I'm here. Okay.
10:35 Speaker 01 So we're in Mexico. I have my rental car. I'm just gonna put the recorder on the dashboard and look up some directions.
10:47 Speaker 01 Tulum is located in the Yucatan Peninsula, on the Caribbean Sea. Yes, the AC's going on because I'm hot. It's a two-hour drive from the airport in Cancun, which, since the 1970s, has been the main hub of tourism in this part of Mexico.
11:07 Speaker 01 But it wasn't until the 2010s that people began to flock to Tulum, which had been a sleepy fishing town with dirt roads, ruins, and bad internet.
11:20 Speaker 01 So it's Wednesday, and I am in Tulum, Mexico.
11:28 Speaker 01 Before I came down, I joined a Facebook group for Black people in Tulum, so I could figure out where people were meeting up. And I found out that there was an event that Wednesday. That's that. So off to Welcome Wednesday.
11:47 Speaker 01 My name's Adiza. Adiza? Adiza, yeah. So I was just coming here to get some tacos. I was actually going to... The Black in Tulum is having a Welcome Wednesday, and so I wanted to go meet some people there. And then I saw this group of beautiful Black people, and I was like, let me just ask them. I made a quick stop before Welcome Wednesday at a vegan taqueria. While I was eating, I could hear bits and pieces of a conversation from a group of Black people sitting next to me. They were talking about traveling. So I walked over, and I told them that I was working on a story documenting Black people who were coming to Mexico.
12:32 Speaker 01 One of the guys told me to pull up a chair. So why don't we just go around really quickly? And you can just say like your name, where you're from, and then maybe one thing that brought you to Tulum.
12:46 Speaker 01 Most of them were from the States, DC, Maryland, Virginia area. And they were all friends of friends who met down here. I appreciated their vibe. They were all warm and inviting, yet they didn't hold back.
13:01 Speaker 02 My name is Gisele. I didn't want to be in America.
13:06 Speaker 02 I never wanted to be in America. I don't want to live my life there. I don't want to have my family there. And I was sent here, quite frankly. I didn't necessarily make a choice. I just knew that I wanted to leave and move.
13:17 Speaker 01 Their reasons for being in Tulum were all different, but they were aligned in a way. They all expressed a pressing desire to get out of the United States ASAP.
13:29 Speaker 04 My name is Ferris. I'm coming to Tulum because America is a cult and I want to be anywhere else. And it was also my birthday. Preach, brother.
13:39 Speaker 01 Happy belated birthday. Tell me more about America being a cult.
13:43 Speaker 04 We're lied to about nutrition. We only have two choices between politics. We care about sports. We treat that like a religion. We watch award shows and we just pick a new celebrity to worship every year. Everything is about money.
13:52 Speaker 01 So how does that tie back into why you're specifically in Tulum?
13:58 Speaker 04 Because to me, it's like, why not Tulum? It's more so just anywhere but America.
14:05 Speaker 01 Then, one of the guys asked me why I came to Tulum. Immediately, I thought about how I wanted to experience this black utopia. The police don't bug us, black people, which is awesome.
14:19 Speaker 04 It's places like this, because in Colombia, there's a lot of black people going there, too. So it's not just Tulum. I think who are smart enough are kind of wise enough to America and like starting to kind of distance themselves from, or relocate, you know what I mean? But it's not just Tulum. It's South America, Africa for sure, yeah.
14:39 Speaker 01 Someone at the table mentions repatriation. Members of the African diaspora have been seeking ways to repatriate or just leave the United States for generations. But a lot of people right now are calling it a black sit.
14:57 Speaker 04 So why I think black people from the States are coming to Mexico is because they do what they do, so.
15:07 Speaker 04 That's my answer for others.
15:10 Speaker 02 You can live, I feel like, you could live lavish in Mexico off of, you know what I'm saying, struggling with back home, right?
15:17 Speaker 01 I pushed them on a question that comes up for me when I travel and has also been coming up ever since I've been thinking about Tulum as this place of refuge. How could they reconcile their need to leave America with the fact that they were enjoying Mexico because they had an American passport and American dollars?
15:39 Speaker 04 But it's like, they treat bad where I'm from too. And then in my home country, incidentally, they kill each other.
15:47 Speaker 01 Ferris told me that it was give and take.
15:50 Speaker 04 So, I don't wanna say I don't care, but I can't not enjoy my life because of it.
16:06 Speaker 01 If this was the first conversation that I was having fresh off the plane into Tulum, I knew that these questions were destined to crop back up while I was here. But first, I wanted to go to Welcome Wednesday. I wanted to have some drinks and meet some more people. A few of the people at the table had heard of Welcome Wednesday too, and they decided to come check it out with me. We walked the two or so blocks to a hookah lounge up the street. There was a bunch of black Americans there. A short woman with a shaved head was standing at a table outside greeting people at the door. As soon as we walk up, she starts up a conversation with this guy named Santiago from DC.
16:47 Speaker 04 Exactly. So, how you enjoying Tulum? I love it here. I might relocate for a couple of months. What do you do? I do e-commerce and I trade cryptocurrency. Oh, you on some whole nother level. All type of stuff. I love it. That's big right now. Crypto? Yeah. For sure, yeah. It's huge. A lot of black people don't know about it.
17:05 Speaker 01 So, eventually, the group of people from the taqueria leave, and I find a place to sit at a table outside. And the crowd here is different.
17:19 Speaker 01 What brought you all to Tulum?
17:21 Speaker 04 Well, I've been here nine months.
17:23 Speaker 01 Oh, wow. That's when I meet Kendrick. He's a photographer from Atlanta. And he describes his vibe as black luxury, black entertainment. He told me he lost his job in the States because of the pandemic. And he was at home watching a lot of news when he got the idea to look for countries that were accepting American tourists.
17:46 Speaker 04 What brought me down here, just being from Atlanta, born and raised there, especially after the whole COVID thing started. Tulum popped up on Airbnb. Never heard of Tulum, didn't know Tulum existed, didn't know what a Tulum was. So I booked to stay here for a whole month. Then the George Floyd thing happened in the States. So I had no desire to leave this tranquility of Mexico to go back voluntarily to madness. They were setting my whole city on fire. Kids were getting tased in cars. Atlanta was on the news every day. If it wasn't the rise in COVID cases, it was the burning of Wendy's down.
18:23 Speaker 01 After a couple of weeks, Kendrick said he signed a one-year lease on an apartment.
18:29 Speaker 01 Wow. How did you feel when you signed the lease?
18:33 Speaker 04 It was, honestly, one of the scariest feelings in the world because I feel like where I differ from a lot of people is when I came to Mexico, it made, that was my first time out of the United States. First passport, stay on, first time leaving, period.
18:49 Speaker 01 Thank you. Cheers, guys. Okay. Thank you. Cheers. Black girl, man. Cheers. I'm sorry, guys.
19:01 Speaker 01 In a few short hours, I had walked up to strangers at a taqueria, met a group of people who were down to show up to Welcome Wednesday with me and who also invited me to a party at their hotel that weekend. I sipped fresh passion fruit cocktails and listened to stories of people meeting folks on the street and doing business with them a few weeks later.
19:25 Speaker 01 It felt like I didn't know which discovery I was going to make next while I was here, but it was all exciting. And I was at the beach. What?
19:34 Speaker 04 I know you lying, they got black spots out here?
19:39 Speaker 04 It's your first time here? No, it's my second time, but we didn't do none of this last time. Okay, Black in Tulum? Yes. Wait a minute, so that mean you live here?
19:51 Speaker 01 That night, I went back to my hotel room. And I felt really good. It was nice to be out on a warm night, to find my people, and to socialize with Black people who were just happy. People who had found some sort of mental respite in what has been a year of so much grief. I was surprised by how many people I met who were extending their trips or straight up moving to Tulum. People kept saying that Tulum was a vibe, but I just thought, perhaps this is what a Black utopia feels like.
20:35 Speaker 01 To be honest, I wish I had discovered this sooner.
20:46 Speaker 01 Oh, there's two dogs. Hi, doggy.
21:12 Speaker 01 So I'm standing in the ocean right now. I have waves coming up and crashing into my ankles. It's about 80 degrees. I'm looking out into the water, and it's like a teal, green, deep blue, a mix of all of those colors. It's gorgeous, and it feels like I'm in a different world.
21:36 Speaker 01 But at the same time,
21:40 Speaker 01 it seemed like there was a lot more to the vibe here than what was on the surface. And it didn't take too long before my Black utopia started to wash away.
22:03 Speaker 03 Let's make sure we're not in the colonial mindset. People talk about wanting to come down and, "Oh, the cost of living is so cheap and I live in luxury." Are you giving back in any way? Or are you simply taking advantage of the resources and labor?
22:41 Glynn Washington? Okay, so what is attracting Black people to Tulum in the first place? Right after the break, stay tuned.
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25:10 Glynn Washington? Welcome back to Snap Judgment, in search of a black utopia. When we last we left, Adisa Egan was high off the vibes of Tulum, Mexico. She's trying to uncover why so many black folk have been heading there. It seems for some, it's a good time. And for others, it's a much deeper purpose. But has she found her black utopia?
25:39 Speaker 03 Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, the United States in 1865. So we had the Underground Railroad to the South. Black folks in the South crossed over the Rio Grande and were able to be free in Mexico. And then, when the oil companies and railroads and all kinds of industries were being built in Mexico in the 19th century, early 20th century, black folks came down to work.
26:15 Speaker 01 I met Patricia Tally right around the time of my trip to Mexico.
26:19 Speaker 03 Even back in Marcus Garvey days, he had a big contingency here in Mexico. So yes, historically, folks have come down and found a comfort level.
26:36 Speaker 03 And now you're seeing this big movement today
26:41 Speaker 03 to find a sense of freedom, a greater sense of freedom.
26:48 Speaker 01 Patricia has been living in Mexico for 24 years. She's in Guerrero, where a lot of Afro-Mexicans live. And like me, she also started to notice that there were a lot of Black Americans moving to Mexico and coming down to Tulum during the pandemic. And she had a request.
27:10 Speaker 03 I'm asking these African-American communities, wherever they are, to be supportive of the Afro-Mexican movement.
27:21 Speaker 01 Patricia writes about the diaspora in Mexico for a publication called Imagine Mexico. She focuses on how African descendants are the third root of the country's indigenous and European heritage.
27:34 Speaker 03 A one-drop rule? If you applied that to Mexico, I bet everybody'd be Black, or just about. All right?
27:48 Speaker 01 If I could bring it back to Tulum, there is something here that many Black Americans are connecting to.
27:57 Speaker 01 Tulum's history dates back to the Maya and their descendants, who've lived on this land for about 800 years. Back then, Tulum was used as a major trading port. People say the Mayan ruins are one of the few energy vortexes in the world, meaning that there's so much energy in and around the ruins that you might say it's on a higher vibrational plane. That's why people sometimes say they've been called to Tulum.
28:32 Speaker 04 Where we at, Nip? Man, we in Tulum, at the Mayan ruins. Just climbed off the mountain, I mean, a pyramid, got to the top.
28:40 Speaker 01 A couple of years ago, Nipsey Hussle came down here and filmed his video for Victory Lap at the Mayan ruins.
28:58 Speaker 01 And in a way, Nipsey fits well into the story of Tulum's tourism ascent.
29:06 Speaker 01 The story of Tulum reflects the story of many tourism spots before it. The exclusivity, the word of mouth, the boom, the overexposure. I heard from people who lived here that back in the early 2010s, Tulum was a vacation spot populated by mostly Mexicans, some Europeans, and Argentinians. Lots of models, photographers, and restaurateurs. Then, the boho chic Americans started coming.
29:40 Speaker 01 The Coachella crowd.
29:44 Speaker 01 From that point forward, Tulum was on the map.
29:49 Speaker 01 In 2015, New York Magazine's "The Cut" called Tulum "the Williamsburg of Mexico." To me, that means there were a lot of white people there. And even if there weren't a lot of us, I can almost guarantee that there were some black people in the mix. There always are.
30:07 Speaker 02 When I first got to Tulum, I was one of maybe five black people. So I didn't know any black people that actually lived in Tulum at the time.
30:16 Speaker 01 Nubia Young was the woman with the shaved head greeting people at Welcome Wednesday. She's lived in Mexico since 2019, a year or so after Nipsey's video dropped. And right around the time when "The Cut" pretty much declared Tulum dead. That same year, French Vogue stated Holbach, an island just a few miles northwest of Cancun, was the new Tulum. But, according to the New York Times, the new Tulum was Laguna Bacalar, a lake south of Tulum, Cancun, and Holbach.
30:57 Speaker 01 They needed a new Tulum because climate change, greed, and waste were starting to destroy the original one. So it's interesting to me that the pandemic supercharged Tulum's tourism ascent for Americans. The number of American tourists to the state where Tulum is located increased 23% in one year.
31:22 Speaker 02 Back in June, Tulum was quiet. It was beautiful. It was peaceful.
31:27 Speaker 01 Mexico and Tulum went into lockdown in the spring of 2020.
31:32 Speaker 02 You didn't hear any construction. There was nothing going on. And it was just, it felt good for a little while. It felt good.
31:42 Speaker 01 Nubia began meeting up with friends. She was working as a travel writer and what she calls an expat coach at the time.
31:50 Speaker 02 And I was like, let's do brunch.
31:52 Speaker 01 And her brunches grew fast. So she created a Facebook group, Black in Tulum.
31:58 Speaker 02 Hey, everybody, what's going on? This is Nubia, the creator of Black in Tulum. And that group started with 25 people on July 27 of 2020. You guys, this has been an amazing two months, less than two months, and we are over 4,000 people in the group. And it is just amazing. And here we are in March, right? We're in March, March of 2021. And the group is over 13.5,000 people.
32:25 Speaker 01 Black in Tulum now has 16,000 members. And Nubia and the group she created have become a major factor in drawing more Black Americans to visit Tulum.
32:36 Speaker 02 It has grown organically through word of mouth.
32:39 Speaker 01 But then, things started to change.
32:42 Speaker 02 And I will say the unfortunate truth is that some people came for the right reasons and some people came for their own reasons.
32:54 Speaker 04 In August, you know, the town was starting to smile a little bit more.
32:58 Speaker 01 Ryan arrived in Tulum in the summer of 2020, just in time for one of Nubia's early branches.
33:05 Speaker 04 And then the seasons did change and so did the individuals.
33:11 Speaker 02 I honestly attribute the change to the celebrities, to be honest with you.
33:18 Speaker 01 The opening of Tulum out of lockdown coincided with the moment last summer during Labor Day weekend, when my sister sent me that video of Meg Thee Stallion.
33:35 Speaker 01 Turns out that lots of videos of Meg were taken when she was in Tulum.
33:40 Speaker 02 That video is circulating everywhere and that's the representation that they're seeing of Black people in Tulum. And that's not the representation of Black people in Tulum.
33:51 Speaker 01 And they really had an impact in certain circles.
33:55 Speaker 02 Please do not come down here trying to just turn up because Tulum is a real chill vibe. It's a bohemian, real like cultural, I would say, earthy crunchy vibe. It really is.
34:10 Speaker 01 I just want to interject and say, by this point, Tulum was known for its party scene. People would go to parties on the beach, parties in cenotes, and dance to trancey electronic music.
34:22 Speaker 02 It is a jungle, period. It's a jungle.
34:26 Speaker 01 But from what I could gather, there wasn't much hip hop or twerking. But when the Meg Thee Stallion video went viral, that seemed to indicate to people that Tulum was close, Tulum was open, and Tulum was a good time. But Tulum was about to be overexposed.
34:47 Speaker 02 And then it just seemed like a flood of celebrities. Next thing you know, Cardi B was in Tulum, Trey Songz, Chris Brown spent like a month or so in Tulum.
34:58 Speaker 04 He saw like Meek Mill tweeted about it and said, "Tulum is the way that like this." I was like, "Oh, Meek Mill? Oh, man.
35:07 Speaker 04 Damn, I'm Meek Mill, but damn."
35:09 Speaker 02 So of course, if you're seeing your favorite celebrities in this place.
35:15 Speaker 02 What happens?
35:17 Speaker 01 The wannabe celebrities start coming.
35:19 Speaker 02 Honey, the wannabe Instagrammers start coming.
35:22 Speaker 01 A guy named Rashid from Oakland, who's been living in the area for the last eight years, told me he had never seen anything like this in Tulum.
35:31 Speaker 04 That's when the Miami, you know, the All-Star Weekend kind of vibe. And what is that vibe? Take me back to the point. I'll just give you an example. And it's no, you know, I got durags at the house. You know, I wear durags. But I never seen he had like all, you know, all white linen. He looked like he just came from the South Beach All-White Cruise with a durag on, with the, you know, he had the Uncle sandals on, you know, barbecue sandals. I was like, OK, oh, yeah, Tulum's on the map. But Tulum is not. It is not the new Miami, OK?
36:09 Speaker 01 I found all of this pretty amusing and kind of absurd. But there was also something that was precarious about this conversation.
36:23 Speaker 01 What I feel like is being implied is that some of these tourists lack respectability. Now, I'm not saying that if some racism went down, nobody would be out there marching. But what I am saying is that I often feel like Black people, we can be most critical of our own.
36:48 Speaker 01 It was Ryan who said something that got me thinking more deeply about the implications and assumptions that were being made here.
36:56 Speaker 04 I see a lot of people trying to find something when they come here. Like, they're trying to find either love. They're trying to find happiness. They're trying to find clarity. They're trying to find comfort. The people that are coming here are trying to escape. They're trying to release, just like we were.
37:12 Speaker 01 We all need to escape. We need freedom. We need to release. And when you start to judge how people who are coming here to escape, release, then who are you saying is worthy of being free in the first place? Who defines what freedom looks like?
37:48 Glynn Washington? When we return, we explore whether freedom looks a little bit different depending on where you're situated. When Snap Judgment: The Search for a Black Utopia continues. Stay tuned.
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41:01 Glynn Washington? Welcome back to Snap Judgment, in the search of a black utopia. My name is Ben Washington. Producer Adisa Egan, she was just getting into what freedom looks like in Tulum, Mexico.
41:16 Speaker 01 Hey. How are you? I'm good, how are you? Good. Thanks for coming by. Good to see you. No problem. Good to see you, too. That Saturday that I was in Tulum, I went to a party on a rooftop at a place called Hotel Macarena. So, we're on a rooftop right now. I don't know, there's probably like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. It was the same party that the folks at the taqueria invited me to. I won't lie, I feel a little awkward.
41:47 Speaker 01 I'm the girl with the microphone. And at first, it was beautiful. What's the odds of me being caught with a celebrity like in Tulum? That's gold, Link. The other day... But while I was there, I also walked over to the perimeter of the roof that we were on, just to look at the view. I saw the road that I drove in on. It was an unpaved dirt road with buildings on the left and jungle as far as I could see on the right. And across the street from me is just all jungle. But I'm sure if I were to come back here in a year or two, this would be developed, there would be construction, the road would be paved, there'd be another hotel here.
42:31 Speaker 01 Because one thing I've noticed since being here is that... The longer I stayed, the more I understood the hold that tourism had on the land and the people who live here.
42:42 Speaker 02 We don't have a good infrastructure in Tulum. There's actually none, sadly. They're keep on selling and building big buildings. And do we know where that dirty water is going? No.
43:01 Speaker 01 I heard often about how the infrastructure in Tulum was being pushed to its limits.
43:07 Speaker 02 Sometimes when there is big storms and stuff like that, all of their...
43:18 Speaker 01 Their poop?
43:19 Speaker 02 It's floating.
43:25 Speaker 01 One business owner told me that the problem wasn't just the tourists, but the greed of those who are letting this happen.
43:33 Speaker 02 More money, more money, more money. But more money will not...
43:37 Speaker 01 Preserve your heritage.
43:42 Speaker 01 Tulum's population in 2010 was 28,000 people. It has more than doubled, not counting temporary residents and the millions of tourists coming in. Last year, the president of Mexico announced that they're building an airport in Tulum, a city that's expected to have over 200,000 people within a decade. And while all of this development has pulled in all kinds of immigration to Tulum, the city hasn't been a place of refuge for all.
44:19 Speaker 05 Victoria Esperanza Salazar was a refugee from El Salvador, a mother of two teenage girls, working in hotels in Mexico's resort town of Tulum. Now she's the face of protests against violence towards women and police brutality.
44:35 Speaker 01 The murder of Victoria Salazar made it very clear that we couldn't say there was no racism or xenophobia in Mexico. The local police in Tulum were constantly abusing their authority. Things got so bad that the state government decided to step in and remove the local police, leaving the state authorities in charge. Having a US passport and US dollars protected you in a place like Tulum. It helped make the vibes good.
45:08 Speaker 01 But it turned out that the vibes weren't even that good all the time. I discovered some fissures, stories of people not supporting each other's businesses, friendships ending, and toxic relationships. I listened, but ultimately, I felt like regardless of where these people went, their problems were going to follow.
45:35 Speaker 01 I didn't feel like it was my place to make the call if they were better off here or in the States. But what did seem clear to me was that there's no one-size-fits-all for self-determination. I wanted a black utopia. I feel like I discovered a bunch of people who were kind of struggling along on their own twisted path.
46:01 Speaker 01 And that's where talking to Patricia really clarified things for me.
46:06 Speaker 02 There was a woman, her name is Patricia Tally, and she did reach out to me at one point and she said, "Nubia, I would love to bring you and some of the Afro-Mexican community to their table because they're angry at the fact of Black Americans coming here and exuding their privilege." So I politely declined, right, because I'm not an activist, nor am I an advocate for, you know, all Black Americans. So I was very careful to not get and cross those lines when I don't know enough.
46:39 Speaker 01 Patricia has positioned herself as a source of information and a bridge between Black people in America, Black people traveling to Mexico, and Afro-Mexicans. And even though she's halfway across the country, she went to Nubia because as the founder of Black in Tulum and as an expat coach, she felt like Nubia was a leader.
47:04 Speaker 03 Maybe you don't want to be an activist, okay? But guess what? Had we not been activists in the United States, you wouldn't even have the opportunity to be coming here.
47:17 Speaker 01 She's part of the civil rights organization, Mexico Negro A.C. They were the group behind the movement to count Afro-Mexicans in the 2020 census.
47:29 Speaker 01 And after the census, Patricia says she learned that African-Americans are the largest number of foreign-born African descendants in Mexico.
47:41 Speaker 01 I liked that Patricia wasn't just judging these folks from across the country. She'd lived that life. Patricia is a generation or two ahead of all these Black Americans moving to Mexico. She seemed to have some insight, so I came to her with all my big questions.
48:03 Speaker 01 We've been talking kind of about African Americans specifically, but you just said that your goal is to lift people up. So what does that look like for the diaspora?
48:14 Speaker 03 I do know in terms of globalization
48:19 Speaker 03 that we would have to change our USA mindset, philosophical mindset, to truly be partnering.
48:29 Speaker 01 Patricia was in corporate banking and then the food and beverage industry. But in both careers, she hit what she called the cement ceiling. So she turned to academia and traveled to Mexico to do her research.
48:48 Speaker 01 She decided to move to Mexico indefinitely with her husband.
48:51 Speaker 03 And ended up opening up a Chick's Fried Chicken restaurant.
48:59 Speaker 01 It was called Chick's Fried Chicken?
49:00 Speaker 03 Uh huh. I can fry some chicken. My daddy was vice president of the operating company for Kentucky Fried Chicken.
49:10 Speaker 03 Right.
49:11 Speaker 01 So you have the recipe?
49:12 Speaker 03 I got the recipe.
49:17 Speaker 01 She says it was the first time she ever felt a sense of freedom as a black woman, which reminded me of what Audre Lorde said about finding it exciting and affirming to be around so many brown faces.
49:30 Speaker 03 And I was sitting up in a bikini with a apron on frying chicken and making apple pies.
49:39 Speaker 01 Patricia went on to teach English in Mexico and she became a dual citizen in 2018. So, you know, I have this question, why is everybody moving to Tulum? But it's really this greater question of why people are moving to Mexico. And they're moving to Mexico and they're starting businesses. And this is really your experience.
49:59 Speaker 03 Somebody told me for African Americans, the American dream is a nightmare.
50:04 Speaker 01 Hmm.
50:05 Speaker 03 Whoa. That's a powerful statement.
50:11 Speaker 01 I'd imagine too, it might feel good to exercise a little bit of that privilege and that exceptionism somewhere else.
50:20 Speaker 03 Oh, yes. Oh, huh. I am professora, maestra Patty. I can't get people to call me by my first name Patricia. Forget that. I'm teacher. I'm maestra. Okay. So it feels good.
50:40 Speaker 03 It it truly does to be respected and and honored. And and I'm, once again, that's the privilege of having had an education um that many don't have access to. It's a privilege of having had US dollars that people don't have access to. So, yeah, to be able to sit back in my backyard and sit at the pool and watch the mountains and listen to the birds and I don't have to worry about things.
51:14 Speaker 01 Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
51:21 Speaker 01 There are marketing companies who research Black travelers. And according to them, the intent for African Americans to move and travel abroad is only going up. I think our ancestors were on to something when they decided to leave the US. But what I gather was the most important from those journeys was the unlocking of a new state of mind.
51:49 Speaker 03 I think every generation is still searching for that freedom. Okay. There's still the quest for that. And so wherever it may be, the commonality is that people are looking for a better life for themselves, for the kids, for the grandkids. And historically, that has not been our experience in the United States.
52:20 Speaker 03 So if folks can find an easier path, then that seems like that's what they want to do.
52:28 Speaker 01 Let me ask you, so you've been in Mexico for 24 years, and you've been upfront about the benefits, the happiness and the freedom and the privilege. But do you feel free?
52:42 Speaker 03 I feel freer. Okay. I will never be free from the memories.
52:56 Speaker 03 But I have a pathway for me to live a more comfortable
53:05 Speaker 03 and satisfactory life.
53:09 Speaker 03 I've got extended family here. I have a community here. I'm respected here. So freedom is a state of mind and being able to do things without
53:24 Speaker 03 barriers and to be able to be judged by your character versus your color of your skin. So I am closer to that freedom than I've ever been before.
53:43 Speaker 01 Closer?
53:44 Speaker 03 Closer is good. Closer is good.
54:00 Glynn Washington? Big, big thanks to Nubia Young, Patricia Tally, and all those in Tulum. This episode was produced by Edisa Egan and edited by Kate Osborne and James T. Green with help from Annie Aviles and Stephanie Kariuki. The original score was by Kyle Murdock.
54:28 Glynn Washington? There and back again. You've done it. And the good news, if you want to be the sexiest person you know, there's only one last thing that must be done. Subscribe to the Snap Judgment Podcast, then look at yourself in the mirror. What did I tell you? SnapJudgment.org. And no, this is not the news. No way this is the news. In fact, to get away from all those crazies in your town, you could pack up and move to Tulum, only to discover all those crazies had exactly the same idea at exactly the same time, and you would still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is PRX.
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