 |
Calle
Aldama & Cardo by Karen Lee Dunn of San Miguel de Allende.
Leigh
Thelmadatter writing for Mexico News Daily, says, “Mexico has always attracted
adventurous foreigners looking for something different, but the expat enclave
phenomenon we know now in San Miguel de Allende began in the 20th century.
San
Miguel is not the first, nor the last, but it is the best known, especially
north of the border. The first was Taxco, just three hours from Mexico City.
In
the 1920s, it attracted foreigners and artists, some famous for its scenery and
“authentic” Mexican atmosphere. But by the late 1930s, there were “too many”
foreigners, leading some to look for an alternative.
Around
that same time, a Peruvian artist discovered the dying town of San Miguel de
Allende. The loss of the commercial silver routes and the Mexican Revolution
had decimated the local economy. However, Felipe Cossío de Pomar “fell in love
with the light” there and envisioned the town as the “new Bauhaus” to give
artists a sanctuary to work in.
He
convinced the Mexican government to let him use an old convent (today the main
cultural center) to establish an art school. Cossío had many contacts with
prominent artists and intellectuals in Mexico and abroad and succeeded in
promoting San Miguel as the new “authentic Mexican” experience.
Cossío
got the school started, but it was the work of American Stirling Dickinson that
gave the school and San Miguel its standing among North Americans. He continued
to promote the town as an “undiscovered gem,” but the real success came when he
got the school accredited with the U.S. government to receive World War II G.I.
Bill money.
However,
the school’s success also brought some major headaches. The main issue was an
already existing conflict between the bohemian artists of the school and the
rather conservative Catholic locals. This was exacerbated by hundreds of
American GIs.
In
addition, students expected more from their tuition money and even staged a
strike that divided the entire population. To satisfy the students, the school
hired David Alfaro Siqueiros to paint a mural, but his radical politics proved
completely unacceptable to the townspeople. His unfinished mural can still be
seen today in the Centro Cultural Ignacio Ramírez El Nigromante.
The
situation caused an international scandal, so the Mexican government stepped
in. It took over, changing the school’s name to the current Instituto Allende.
It was moved to the De la Cana Hacienda on the outskirts of town, a larger
space, but G.I. Bill accreditation was lost.
The
school is not the main reason why San Miguel attracts so many artists and
retirees today. In fact, it is peripheral to life in San Miguel at best.
Although
the school’s turbulent heyday lasted only a few years, the GIs who studied
there remembered San Miguel fondly. When they began reaching retirement age,
more than a few decided to return. They bought the old, dilapidated colonial
structures and fixed them up to create the historic center as it exists today.
As
their numbers grew, businesses sprang up, and infrastructure was improved,
starting a snowball effect that continues to this day. San Miguel is now a tourist
destination and a World Heritage Site. Condé Nast Traveler named it the best
city in the world to live. The town now attracts tourists, as well as moneyed
Mexicans who buy weekend homes here.
Despite
the near irrelevance of the Instituto Allende and the influx of non-artist
retirees, art remains an important element of life in San Miguel. The returning
GIs never lost their interest, whether they had pursued a career in art or not,
they certainly were involved with it (again).
To
this day, the town attracts Mexican and foreign artists of retirement age and
younger. The concentration of residents with the economic means to buy art
means that San Miguel is Mexico’s second most important domestic art market
after Mexico City.
But
the picture isn’t entirely rosy. Aside from the urban sprawl and traffic that
just seems to be getting worse, the center has been derided as a “Disneyland”
version of Mexico — too perfect. Most locals cannot afford to live there and
have moved to the less scenic periphery. These negatives have prompted another
search for the “authentic Mexican experience” in places such as Coatepec,
Veracruz, and San Cristóbal, Chiapas, whose residents worry that too many
“gringos” will lead their town to San Miguel’s fate.”
