Gringo De Mexico

Film Review by Norman Popovsky

Dennis Lanson is an award winning movie Director and Professor of Film at Endicott College. He has built a home in San Miguel de Allende and plans to retire here soon. In Gringolandia we see San Miguel through his eyes and hear something of his desires as he narrates the film.

As someone who has lived here more than 30 years, I find it refreshing to experience through Lanson some of the hopes and joys I once had moving to San Miguel. However, I was even more impressed by his ability to bring out the rich observations of the many and diverse inhabitants of San Miguel through the changes that the town has taken.

Even though I am friends with many of those interviewed, I found myself enlightened and sometimes moved by their comments.

Paulina, Director of Academia Hispano Americana tells of her parents settling here when the town had 5000 inhabitants. About the earliest Gringos, she says

And the people that came before for some 40 years, they were people that had left the US for whatever reason who had the desire to live in a little town in the middle of Mexico, a very small town not easy to get to Who didn’t speak the language but tried to learn it. Some with more success than others…but who tried to integrate themselves without pretending to pass as Mexicans. The enormous effort they made to speak Spanish, to learn…to be accepted, not to be taken for intruders…to not be seen as meddling with the culture…very respectful…And they traveled all over Mexico. They studied anthropology. They were interested in the Maya. I learned a whole lot about Mexico from them.