Testing Your Biases in Mexico
Updated July 2023
Personal growth as defined by psychologists is often couched in terms of finding room in one’s attitudes and opinions to accommodate new information, to have developed more flexibility in one’s thinking.
Expats often talk about how living in another country has helped them grow. I always hope that I what I learned in Mexico and want to change about myself will carry over into both big and small moments of my life, whether at home or in Mexico.
How in small moments? Being in a different culture transforms even mundane decisions into opportunities for self-examination, opportunities that were lost in daily life at home years ago.
For example, the banal task of getting dental work in Mexico called into question my biases and level of cynicism in choosing doctors and dentists. At issue was what to pay for services as a comparatively affluent person in a poor country. It’s one that constantly yanks expats and foreign residents between saving as much money as they can (after all, saving money is a main reason to live here), and doing what feels right.
Mexicans know Americans to be generous. We tip well. We’re usually fair, maybe even naively so. We’re an optimistic bunch, generally believing that “there’s more where that came from” as only people raised in a highly capitalistic society can.
For all our swagger and obnoxiousness in public places, our reputation all this redeems us in Mexico, stoking a fondness in the hearts of Mexicans that we probably otherwise would not deserve.
On a whole (and this is just a palapa survey report), Americans don't mind paying a little more for quality services or even to just meet basic expectations, as long as the situation doesn't get out of hand.
I had known for quite some time that I would be needing a root canal, and went into a clinic for a consult, waiting along with a half dozen people in the reception room before my appointment.
The office was busy, with a number of dental assistants and dentists moving from room to room. This is a good sign in Mexico. For the endodontics, post and porcelain crown, my total cost for the root canal would be $350. The consult was 100 pesos (about $5).
Very few expats would have responded to an ad in the paper. Expats almost always find dentists and medical professionals by asking their expat friends for referrals for doctors, dentists… any service actually. My plan in stopping by this office, one that advertised to the general Mexican public, was to see how it compared to the quote I got from and endodonist recommended by an expat friend.
Expat referrals and their flaws
The endodontist my friend referred to me had an apparently spa-inspired office in El Centro, Mazatláns historical neighborhood. No one else was in the dentist’s office other than the receptionist when I arrived.
After tapping on my teeth and doing x-rays exactly like the first specialist had done, he gave the same diagnosis. He quoted me 14,000 pesos ($750 dollars) for the same treatment, more than double the first endodontist. Moreover, he charged me 800 pesos for the consult ($43 dollars). Shocked by the difference, I told him I only had 600 pesos on me. He accepted that.
Now, it would be easy for the story to end there, as simply a case of another Mexican dentist or service provider seeing an American and jacking up the price accordingly. This tends to happen when a service provider speaks English and builds a substantial expat customer base. Damn Mexicans!
At this point of the story the question of cultural bias comes in - I began to reconsider the assumption. How many times had I discovered I was paying double the market rate paid for the same service in the U.S.? In my own case, what came to mind was my former CPA, who charged me almost three times what my current CPA does to prepare my taxes.
When I was looking for a lawyer, attorneys in the same specialty charged anywhere from $150 an hour to $300. Were these rip offs or an indication of higher quality work? Looking at the situation from yet another angle, this may not be opportunism by either the CPA in Denver or the Mexican endodontist as much as an inflated opinion of one’s work.
The only way to determine if the second endodontist was taking advantage of my American status would be to find out what his Mexican patients paid. In the case of the first endodontist, the office had a printed price sheet they gave to everyone so I knew I was charged what Mexicans were. There was no way of knowing how much Mexican clients of the second endodontist were charged.
Opportunism in both cultures
Looking back over the last few years as a part-time resident in Mexico, the number of times that a vendor or service provider has charged or attempted to charge me substantially more than their professional peers has been almost exactly the same number of times in Mexico and the U.S.
US capitalism is loaded with opportunism. In a single week in Denver, a yoga studio kept billing me monthly after I had bought a single month’s package with a credit card. A meal delivery company did the same. I have to check my bank statement online in the U.S. every time I buy a service. The total out of pocket cost of being overcharged was far greater in the US.
To bring this back to personal growth, experiences like these in Mexico always force me to examine my biases. Being outside my culture in Mexico made the price higher quote in Mexico feel more sinister when in truth it was no more distasteful than American capitalism often is. As a Mexican friend of mine in Denver once said when camparing our cultures, “es egual”.
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About the author:
Kerry Baker is the author of three books. The second book is "If Only I Had a Place," a guide to renting luxuriously in Mexico, complete with a list of vetted concierges in all the most popular expat destinations. Learn the advantages and the pitfalls of renting as an expat.
The third book is The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico. Practical advise and anecdotes that make cultural points, This is the only how-to manual on the market that won’t leave you numb. Most recently, she released a cookbook, The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico, a cookbook for travelers, expats and snowbirds who want to maintain a healthy diet in Mexico.