Veteran Expat with very little contact with the Expat community

[rickcadena]

Hello Everyone:

I immigrated to Mexico (Mexico City) in February 1966 and have been here ever since then. My experience has been remarkably different from the average Expat's experience, and this is something I would like to share with everyone, as well as be of help to those who are new and getting to know Mexico.

Here is a simplified list of where I have been in the last 43 years here:

- Married to and divorced from a Mexico City girl (married to Graciela for 20 years)
- Taught ESL/EFL for 30 years, including the Instituto Politecnico Nacional (IPN)and the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM /certified by the UNAM language center)
- Currently a free-lance Spanish to English translator specializing in accounting, auditing, finance, banks, tax, SOX, and corporate law, and have developed a solid client portfolio of Mexico member firms of international public accounting firms (Grant Thornton, PwC, KPMG, RSM, AGN, etc.) over the last 20 years. I usually have all, sometimes more work that I can handle. I am also in the process of having my Spanish-English / English-Spanish dictionary of accounting, financial, and tax terms (5,500) copyrighted in the US, and will go shopping for a publisher soon. I will probably need some advice on how to do that.
- I underwent psychoanalysis all in Spanish. I wasn't too happy with myself in my younger years. It was a great experience.
- As a Mexican-American from the anglo neighborhoods of Los Angeles and not speaking Spanish as a child at home and learning Spanish as a teenager, immigrating to Mexico has been incredible. Mexico taught me that I could never be Mexican like them. My Mexican ancestry (with a Cuban greatgrandmother for extra frosting on the cake) has always been greatly appreciated, but bottom line ... I have always been and will always be a "Gringo". When asked where I'm from, my patented response with a big smile is "Soy de Los Angeles, California".
- In music, I grew up with the rock and roll and US pop music of my times (50s & early 60s). At almost age 21, the latin bug hit me as I started to listen to Spanish language radio in Los Angeles and discovered all types of Latin American music, including that of Mexico. But I totally flipped out when I heard Afro-Cuban (called salsa these days) and discovered its mandatory link with jazz. As a musically inclined former choir boy at catholic school, I learned how to play Afro-Cuban percussion instruments (congas, bongos, timbales, etc.). That took me to the latin dances at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunset Blvd. where I saw stars like New York born Tito Puente.
- Here in Mexico, I occasionally played congas at parties, and eventually had contact with local salsa bands, befriended them, and often sat in and jammed on congas with them (1969-1984). I also called into a salsa radio program and was invited to be a guest. That led to being a guest commentator on various Mexico City salsa radio shows and became well-known by salsa fans (1972-1995). I even had my own radio show on XERIN (660 AM) entitled "Con Sabor Latino", which lasted 9 months in 1988. All of this was in Spanish. I also wrote several articles on the salsa scene in Mexico for US hispanic publications (Latin New York, Mambo Express, & Latin Beat).
- Via Internet over the last 10 years, I am now connected to three yahoo salsa/latin jazz yahoo groups and listen to salsa & Latin Jazz from the US. I also made contact through these groups and appeared on salsa/latin jazz radio shows (speaking English) in Los Angeles on 4 different occasions when on vacation. I also sat in and jammed on conga drums (played two tunes) with one of the best Los Angeles latin jazz groups.

I signed up to take Spanish as a foreign language at age 14 to make my mom happy. After spending the next summer when I turned 15 in Mexico City, Spanish became my thing, not my mom's. What a ride this has been.
Saludos a todos - Greetings to everyone.
Richard Cadena