“There are too many people from here, here.”

A few nights ago, at a pizza shop, two men in line heard my friend and I speak English and asked us where we were from. After we exchanged introductions — they were visiting from Europe — I asked them how they were liking their visit to Brazil. One man responded:

“It’s been okay…Though, there are too many people from here, here.”

My friend and I were taken aback by the absurdity of this comment. 

“That’s because…you’re here,” my friend finally responded. “The people are from here because… you’re here.”

It was almost too textbook to believe. In just one sentence, this man’s comment seemed to capture everything neo-colonialist about Western travel culture: an entitlement to enter any foreign space, take in its paradise, without the inconveniences of dealing with whoever may already be living there. He was clearly the kind of traveler that only went to places where he could encounter other tourists, and the comforts of living back at home. He wanted the good food and the “pristine” nature and the cheaper exchange rate. But the people actually living here are in fact a distraction from his experience. What do to do with a Brazil filled with Brazilians? Colonizers asked the same question. 

When I worked in a hostel in Cusco, I met so many white travelers with the same travel style. Most had spent weeks in Cusco and never seen one Incan site, never had one conversation with a Peruvian outside of the cleaning staff. This same dynamic certainly exists in resort towns like Ocho Rios and Cancun and Santo Domingo, but it also exists with people seeking not only to travel but live in cities abroad where they can safely and reasonably spend the entire time here not having to be burdened by locals. I remember a woman from the U.S. who had lived as an expat throughout East Asia tell me she didn’t like Hong Kong because it was “too Chinese.” Expats don’t take over places like Chiang Mai and San Miguel de Allende and Costa Rica to engage with the people living there. They travel there specifically because there are no longer as many people from there, there. Once that changes, the city then loses its allure. 

Though this man’s comments were extreme, I realized they capture a dynamic we all play out to some extent.

In any space we enter, we want just the right amount of locals to serve as tokenized props and lend the area authenticity, but not so many so as to cause any inconvenience. Our entire public education system’s segregation problem stems from this: parents moving to neighborhoods they call “edgy” when there’s just the right amount of people from there there, but then sheltering their children from the area’s schools where there’s too many people from there there. 

Reflecting on all this, in retrospect I’m grateful that I ended up living this month in Brazil in a neighborhood where I hardly ever saw other tourists. I like that few people speak English and force me to feel the anxiety, frustration, and loneliness of not having the power to communicate easily. I like that I haven’t been able to find drip coffee or Americanos at any cafe, or canned beans at any grocery store. I like that on Thanksgiving I had to make the pie crust and pumpkin pie puree by hand. I like that I’m back to drying my clothes on a drying rack and taking showers next to the little water heater, hearing the flame blast each time I turn it on. After nearly three years living in the United States (the longest I’ve lived in the United States since college!), this trip has made me realize just how fucking American I’ve become: totally accustomed to everything being quick and convenient and oversized and catering specifically and only for me. It feels humbling, healthy and needed to remind myself of that entitlement American society allows me to swim in, and spend at least a month each year remembering what it feels like to live without it.