Do the Locals Resent the Gringos in Latin America?

Imagine you have arrived to Latin America.

Maybe you showed up to Buenos Aires.

Or Maybe San Jose.

Either way, you fly into the region.

Thinking you are going to have the time of your life.

As the plane lands to your destination, the staff on the plane are greeting everyone with a “welcome” to whatever country you arrived to.

But then they see your gringo ass passing by….

The tone changes.

“Go back to your land, fucking gringo.” They tell you.

You seemed quite taken aback from the unusual greeting…

But you don’t let it ruin this wonderful experience that you had been waiting for.

Once you get outside of the airport, you look for your taxi.

A taxi driver waves you over and seems quite friendly with a welcoming smile!

“Where U from?!?!” he asks with a thick accent.

“I’m from England!” you reply.

“So you’re not from our home country?!?” he asks angrily.

To which then the taxi driver turns angry and abruptly stops his vehicle.

“Get out. Get out of my fucking taxi, gringo!” he yells at you.

Leaving you in the middle of some dangerous neighbourhood of the city.

As you get out then in an area that seems unsafe…

Dangerous looking folks sitting on the side of the pavement look up at you.

Wearing their baseball shirts with reggaeton viejo blasting from somewhere….

A song like this here below.

And they realize something…

Everyone in the neighbourhood.

“This….this is a gringo?!?!”

That’s when everyone in the street gets out of their house.

With baseball bats, guns, machetes, Molotov cocktails and everything else that is deadly.

And they surround you….

“Die Yankee Scum Die!” they all chant repeatedly as they get closer and closer…

Before ultimately you meet your demise…

All because the locals know the truth…

They know!

That you have more money than they do….

They know!

That all the local women are dying to fuck you while they get no pussy themselves.

So you must die, they yell.

Of course….

That sounds like bullshit.

Resentment by the Locals?

There is this belief by foreigners who live in Latin America that the locals down here have this deep resentment against us.

A bit different than the paranoia some Americans have about the world hating us.

As the resentment I am talking about in this case has more to do with lifestyle.

Some local who might be working 50 hours a week for 250 bucks a month…

And who hasn’t had sex with anyone in the last 6 months….

 Perhaps he is working hard on the streets selling Covid masks or chocolate bars or whatever it might be…

Maybe he is cleaning up the trash on the streets…

All under a hot day as he sweats his ass off working hard.

Checks his phone in his free time to see the few chicks he messaged all ignored his messages.

And he gets back to work.

To see some average looking foreigner walking by.

The same foreigner he has seen every day outside.

Who seemingly came out of nowhere to the city.

“He’s definitely not a local.”

“Does he even speak Spanish?!”

But despite being a foreigner with assumingly no Spanish under his belt….

The local sees this motherfucker outside every day bringing a new chick to his apartment building.

“Does this motherfucker even work?!” the local wonders.

“What bullshit is this?!”

So he seemingly never works, probably doesn’t speak Spanish, is a foreigner and can just walk in by and steal all our women!

While I got to work this bullshit job selling Covid masks in the street!”

But do said locals have this type of resentment against us foreigners?

Or how much of this is bullshit?

Well, on one hand, I have seen this type of resentment on a few locals.

However, I feel it can sometimes be overemphasized by some foreigners who live down here.

Let’s look at some brief examples I can think of like this and then get to my final thoughts on the subject.

Angie’s Friend

One time, I was hanging out with a friend of mine named Angie some years ago.

Way back when we first met.

We had been hooking up often and just hanging out in general.

With her posting photos of us together on social media like Instagram or Whatsapp.

Anyway, some random Mexican dude sends her a message.

To keep it short, the dude got to the point quickly enough about how “she should be with a Mexican guy.”

In general, I felt the dude was showing a bit of jealously or maybe resentment against the fact that this random ass gringo could just pop by and get a chick.

Maybe a chick he had been trying to sleep with forever and couldn’t?

Maybe he wanted to fuck Angie for a long time?

Then random ass gringo shows up and gets her in no time.

So I can see the resentment in that sense.

There have been a few folks I have noticed in Latin America who seem to have this jealously or resentment against the fact that a gringo can do that.

It’s a bit similar though to the whole “stay away from our women” obsession some locals have.

You see it in every group to be fair.

A black woman who hates seeing a black man with a white woman.

A white man who hates seeing a black man with a white woman.

An Asian man who hates seeing an Asian chick with a white man.

So on and so on…

Similarly, it’s just another “stay away from our women gringo because I can’t get no pussy.”

It goes beyond that that…

“Stay Home! We Have Enough Gringos!”

Next, we have a more recent example I can think of back when I was looking at some Facebook comments on a “foreigners who live in Mexico City” group.

Basically some couple from Europe (if I remember right) wanted to travel to Mexico.

And they were just asking basic questions about the country and any tips we have for them.

Now, keep in mind, this group is technically only for foreigners who live in Mexico City.

But you do have Mexicans in the group also.

And sometimes some of the Mexicans get pissed at what they see us foreigners posting about Mexico.

Not often but it can happen.

Anyway, this was one of those cases.

Where some random ass Mexican dude posted something in the comments about how “they should stay home! We don’t need you!”

Anyway, people started responding to him…

And his gripe with foreigners more had to do with his belief that we are driving up the prices for apartments in Mexico City.

Which is partly true in certain neighbourhoods like Roma Norte or Condesa.

Though you have plenty of richer locals who live in those areas also that have money.

Like in the last apartment building I lived in by Roma Norte, I’d say maybe a third of the building were foreigners.

And the other 2/3s were local Mexicans.

Either way, the guy was going on about how “we have it so easy here but we drive up the prices for the locals for rentals.”

That was the basics of what he said after paraphrasing it.

Finally, there’s another example I can think of….

Looking into Bogota

Finally, there is one other example I can think of very briefly.

Back when I was living in Barranquilla, Colombia, I was planning on a trip to go to the capital of Colombia, Bogota.

I was going to be there for a very brief period as I was traveling with a girlfriend of mine at the time.

She was meant to deal with some Embassy work to get some visa needed to stop by the US.

And also visa work for her working abroad.

So we went together to some hotel in Bogota for that brief period.

But before I showed up, I joined some Facebook groups for locals in Bogota.

I was thinking maybe we could get a very short term rental instead of a hotel if we could find a good deal or not.

Like the place I had in Barranquilla – which rents out long term and short term.

Anyway, as I was looking at some of those Facebook groups, I came across some meme in Spanish that someone posted about foreigners in Bogota.

It was tongue in cheek.

Nothing offensive to me.

But the conversation turned nasty by one of the locals who started shit talking expats.

Talking about how easy we have it here and all.

A bit similar to that Mexican Facebook guy.

But that’s all it was.

Final Verdict

Now, on top of my head, I think those are all the examples I can think of regarding locals having resentment against foreigners.

Given I have 6 years down here in total now, that really isn’t much.

3 examples in 6 years?

Doesn’t sound bad to me.

One example every 2 years!

And out of all of those examples…

They were all online.

Nobody has ever said shit to my face.

Ever.

Nobody has ever said “go home gringo! Gringo home home!”

Never happened.

My personal belief about this topic is this…

And it’s just my opinion only based on my experience and not any specific data obviously….

But I feel most locals don’t give a shit about us or have a resentment.

More don’t spend their days thinking about “how easy we have it” down here.

Even those that do have that resentment…

I feel don’t have the balls to say anything to our face.

At least in my experience – none have!

It’s always online.

By a few random local incel types and that’s it.

On top of that, you have plenty of folks who even like gringos!

Perhaps because they want to sell us something…

Or perhaps because they just have a genuine interest in foreigners.

Not at all hostile.

At the end of the day, you are going to have xenophobia in any country.

Locals who hate different groups of people anywhere.

Latin America isn’t special when it comes to that.

I just feel that the whole idea about “the locals having resentment against us” is a bit overexaggerated at times by just some gringos who live down here.

It’s an idea that some seem to run with in their heads.

For whatever reason.

Anyway, that’s all I got to say on the topic.

If you have any comments, drop them below.

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Best regards,

Matt