On Thursday night, we had a guest in our evening spinning class who was up from Mexico visiting his girlfriend, who is a regular attendee. As soon as I saw them enter the gym together, my eyes were on him like a mustache on a Mariachi. At the time, I didn't realize he was her boyfriend, but within seconds she introduced him to me in English as her boyfriend after a brief hello in Spanish (do not attempt to practice your Spanish with Mexicans if they know English; you'll never win).
Damn. Nevertheless, I feasted my eyes upon him anyhow. It was my turn to stare at a Mexican man for a change.
As the class began, my instructor politely asked him questions to help him feel included in our small group of overweight American cyclists (excluding his very thin Mexican girlfriend that he was seated next to, of course).
"What is your name?," she asked.
"Ivan," he responded (pronounced like Ee-von).
"'Ee-von?,'" the girl cycling next to me asked.
"Yeah, you know, like 'Ivan,'" I replied to her, minus the Spanish accent.
"Oh."
I guess she doesn't know the Spanish alphabet, I thought.
The instructor continued to make small talk over the noise of spinning bicycle wheels and blaring techno music.
"How long are you here for?"
"Two weeks."
"Is this your first time here?"
"Yes," and then something about his job and coming back and forth, like his girlfriend does. But, yes.
"Do you like it here?"
Say yes.
"Yes."
Good boy.
"Would you want to live here?"
Ooh, good one.
"Yes."
Of course.
"Do you 'do this' in Mexico, as well?" (spinning classes)
"Yes, all the time."
Why, that would explain your lovely, fit body, then.
Ahem...
At that point, I began wondering what it was like to live in Ivan's world at that moment. There is a large window in the studio where you can see everybody walking by, standing outside of the studio next door, walking around the track, stretching, doing nothing, whatever. I soon realized that Ivan's ocular senses and twenty-something hormones were most likely going into overdrive as he took in all of the sights and sounds of blonde and brunette young American women in their spandex workout clothing and lighter complexions, something he naturally was not used to seeing as he comes from a land where everyone looks the same, something he most likely only sees on TV or as he browses through porn sites online. (Ha....)
I was willing to bet even the American men were intimidating to him, with their bulging muscles and seemingly gigantic Nordic structures, complemented with lightly-colored eyes that beamed stereotypes and beaner jokes into the souls of each Latino crossing their paths.
Everything that we do not notice on a daily basis, Ivan most likely noticed during his stay in America. Right down to how fast you appear to be pedaling on your stationery bike, the look on your face as you push yourself as hard as you can, and the amount of sweat pooling under your arms and above your eyebrows as you frantically cycle through an entire hour of Fitness Hell.
Ivan and his girlfriend come from a class of Mexican society that we do not see often in the United States. We don't see them often because that type of Mexican comes from a family where the parents have seen some success, so they are able to go to college, get his/her degree, learn English along the way, and reach success in their home country with a professional job that allows them to live comfortably and remain immersed in their native culture. I never knew Mexicans of this caliber existed until I spent four months living there, and realized that even they were not exempt from having divisions and "castes" within their own society. Ivan's girlfriend was in the U.S. because she works for a Mexican company that has an office in Auburn Hills, so she goes back and forth a few times a year for months at a time. (I wouldn't mind having her job...)
The Mexicans we see crawling into the states with $5 in their pocket, a sack of dirty clothes on their back, and bruises from being robbed and beaten by Mexican cartels specializing in this kind of behavior, have grown up in poverty, have not gone to college and most likely never finished grammar school, have been working hard physical labor since age 10 or younger, have siblings, parents, wives and children back home living off of whatever they bring home, who have decided that their country has failed them and they are now willing to risk it all by going to the U.S. to find work, even if it means they will die or go to jail along the way. To them it is better than remaining how and where they are, and they see no other way out.
Two very different sets of people; two cultures co-existing as one; two groups of Mexican society that make up the country's population - the rich and the poor. There is maybe a sliver of middle-class in their society, but it is hard to know what Mexico even defines as "middle-class."
After the class ended, one woman approached Ivan's girlfriend and began asking questions about Mexico. I didn't hear exactly what she was asking; I could just hear the tones in her voice going up and down, her squeals of delight as she dreamed of visiting one day, and her increasingly loud voice that was sure to scare away poor Ee-von and shatter all of his daydreams of experimenting with an American woman. Yet it sounded so typical, like I was just waiting for somebody to approach her and perform this dialogue any day now, letting out bursts of temporary excitement in the presence of a foreigner, the false claims that their country must be "just so beautiful," and the implication of a blossoming friendship that will most likely never be. It sounded so superficial, weak, annoying, so..... American?
