There’s a sense of something sadly amiss in the lakeside area of late. Taking into account the community’s diverse demographics, I’d label it the rise of the Ugly Expatriate.
Most everyone is familiar with the term “the Ugly American.” I found it aptly explained in Wikipedia:
“Ugly American” is a stereotype depicting American citizens as exhibiting loud, arrogant, self-absorbed, demeaning, thoughtless, ignorant, and ethnocentric behavior mainly abroad, but also at home. Although the term is usually associated with or applied to travelers and tourists, it also applies to U.S. corporate businesses in the international arena.
The Collins English Dictionary defines an Ugly American as “a stereotypical representation of an American tourist as a brash and insensitive philistine.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary’s definition is “an American in a foreign country whose behavior is offensive to the people of that country.
The last one best applies to our neck of the woods, extending to local foreigners of any nationality who exhibit uncouth behavior. And my concern stems from the scuttlebutt picked from employees of many local businesses.
Store clerks talk about the lack of basic courtesies they experience in dealing with many expat customers. Take that in terms of the polite behaviors engrained in Mexican culture that commonly guide people in daily interactions with others.
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