A growing movement of Black Americans are moving to Mexico, hoping to find refuge from racism.
Through interviews with three “Mexpats,” this film explores how they are navigating questions of race, language and colour in their new country, as well as accusations of gentrification.
What many don’t realize is that the presence of the African diaspora in this part of the world is not new. In fact, it’s centuries old. Mexico was once home to one of the largest African-descended populations in the Americas outside of Brazil. During the colonial period, enslaved Africans were brought by the Spanish to work in ports, plantations and mines, including regions along the Yucatán Peninsula. Some escaped and joined Indigenous Maya communities, forging maroon societies in the dense jungles. Others became free citizens, laborers and soldiers. Even Mexico’s second president, Vicente Guerrero, was Afro-Mexican and is credited with abolishing slavery in Mexico. That history makes the modern Black migration to places like Playa del Carmen feel less like a rupture and more like a return.
Today, an estimated 800,000 Americans live in Mexico, the largest U.S. expatriate community in the world, according to the U.S. State Department. While no one tracks exact numbers for race, African Americans are estimated to make up 10–15% of the five million Americans abroad, meaning there could be more than half a million Black Americans living outside the U.S. Many are drawn by the same combination of affordability, safety and cultural connection.
But why Mexico? Besides the obvious proximity to its neighbour to the north, Mexico offers an affordable cost of living and a kind of anonymity that’s hard to find in the States. For many Black Americans carrying the weight of systemic fatigue, that combination can feel less like escape and more like relief.
In Playa del Carmen, that fatigue meets its antidote. This place offers more than just locals in Mayan costumes posing for tourist photos, or tour guides recycling the same Mayan human-sacrifice jokes. For some, Playa is a place to heal, to rest, to work and for a growing number, to stay.