I can only compare Monterrey Mx (one of the most affluent cities in Latin America) vs Colorado which is where I get my experience.
In MX, there is such a class distinction. If you are high class, you don't mingle with the "poors." You wear designer clothes, latest gadgets, you go to fancy places to vacation like Milan, NYC or Paris.
In Colorado, the people with money I knew, dressed like hobos and went camping, had campervans and invested a lot of money in gear.
In Mexico you would never, ever catch a rich person camping. You're supposed to go to Switzerland and sip wine and dress fancy.
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Cultural difference
But I like camping … I don’t want to have to be poor just to be allowed to enjoy the outdoors lol
Maybe we just aren’t restrained by arbitrary rules.
Because we do not have classes, technically. And being a snob is considered rude.
What’s your definition of “high class”?
Classism is way more subtle here. I know a billionaire that drives a 10 year old f150 and lives in the middle of nowhere in New England.
In American culture being educated means valuing your community and generosity/charity/humility. So elitism even though it exists everywhere is less valued than maybe it is in Mexico
>If you are high class, you don’t mingle with the “poors.” You wear designer clothes, latest gadgets, you go to fancy places to vacation like Milan, NYC or Paris.
This describes a lot of the uber wealthy in the US too.
Main reason is that the US doesn’t really have poor people by any type of global standard.
At the end of the day, most Americans don’t care what someone else’s money is. That isn’t always the case but day to day people aren’t going to care or be impressed by strangers and their money.
You’re mapping a very specific Monterrey fresa subculture onto all of Mexico in a way that doesn’t fit.
Every rich chilango I know was constantly in hidalgo or Morelos for a weekend getting away from city life, and enjoying an overpriced miche bar they could pretend was naco
I wonder if you’re not considering our analogous wealthiness. We absolutely have the “high class” people you describe in Mexico.
It’s really complicated but I feel like so much goes all the way back to the founding of a region. And rich folks in Texas are different than rich people in New England or SC.
Wow I didn’t know that about Mexico. But yes, rich people often dress casually if they’re not at work. They do go to fancy places for vacation but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t enjoy a camping trip too. As far as “mingling with the poor” not sure exactly what you mean, rich people don’t usually hang out with poor people just because there lives and experiences are so much different, but they don’t look at poor people like they have leprosy or something. Of course there are some “stuck up” ones like you’re describing in Mexico as well. But yes, a multi millionaire definitely could be wearing flip flops shorts a t shirt and a baseball hat.
I’m not quite sure what your threshold of rich is, but in America many people with a net worth between $1M and $5M are just regular people who live middle class lives and invested their money over time. They are objectively rich but could blow that money pretty quickly if they let spending get out of control.
Once you get into the $10M+ range that’s a different level. Those people probably aren’t camping unless it’s a hobby of theirs. And they don’t mingle with “poors” but they do have them do a lot of work around their house.
Colorado also tends to have more people into outdoors type activities regardless of wealth.
Those who’ve already made it have nothing to prove.
Colorado is a bit of an outlier with a VERY different culture from most places because it draws all the outdoorsy more free-spirited type of people. A better comparison would be the ultra wealthy in a place like Dallas, Tx who are flying to New York for their haircuts. And no, generally the rich people aren’t hanging out with poor people wherever you are in the USA. People tend to make friends and hang out with people like them. The rich guy in a beater car out camping is probably camping with his rich friend also in a beater car.
The people in Colorado aren’t the same kind of rich as the people in Mexico you’re describing.
I’m no expert but Colorado money would be different from another state’s money, and there may be affluent people in other parts of the country who are more steroetypically dressed.
Part of the difference is that you’re comparing Monterrey to someplace in Colorado.
People in Colorado generally live there because they like the outdoors. It’s a draw for rich or poor. (Though as you note the way the rich camp is often, but not always, different from the way poor people camp.) Colorado is also in the middle (ish) of the country (making international travel more time consuming), and is not an entertainment, business, or financial hub (not that Denver isn’t an important city for a lot of industries, but it’s not New York, Boston, Miami, Chicago, LA, or San Francisco). So the rich people who principally live in Colorado are going to have different values than the richest people on the coasts.
There are many very rich Americans that spend time with people from other economic and social classes, but I think if you hobnobbed with the ultra rich in the financial class in New York, or the tech class in the Bay Area, or the entertainment class in LA., you’d probably find more folks with similar attitudes to the rich in Monterrey.
I lived in Dominican Republic as a teenager and alsoo lived most my life in the states. It’s similar in DR too, i think it’s basically the culture in a lot of countries.
I think because the difference between poor and rich is vastly different and in many of these countries it’s more about presentation. My parents are dominican immigrants, they never overspent and were pretty humble but they also valued presentation.
Americans dont value presentation as much. In america the rich people want to look rich and wear designer stuff. Like if you wore american products you were seen as rich. It could be a simple nike shirt and theyd look at you like you were balling. Because a lot of the clothing is fake in those countries. Even going to american fast food places was seen as balling. Like people went dressed nicely to mcdonalds.
In the states, ti’s not as much like that. For you to wear some of this stuff, you better be a multi-millionaire to have gucci products, multiple cars that look good etc. But by the time someone make sthat much money it’s usually beacuse they had low spending habits already.
Like i make way more money than my dominican relatives. Hell im technically in a higher social/financial ran in the US than they are in DR, but if we saw me vs them youd think they had 10x more money than me.
I think this is new money vs old(er) money.
I feel the new money of the developing world there’s a lot more focus on showing it off. Seems like I see more higher end cars when I’m seeing tours of Chinese cities than I do even in my local affluent suburbs.
>In Mexico you would never, ever catch a rich person camping. You’re supposed to go to Switzerland and sip wine and dress fancy.
You don’t have to be rich to do any of those things, that’s just a flex of aesthetic or trying to play pretend at what culturally you think rich people do. You can portray that and have no money and drown in debt, it’s not even a good gauge of anyones finances.
I’ve always heard the phrase “money talks/shouts, wealth whispers”, no idea where it actually comes from but the sentiment was always that people who were actually wealthy didn’t flaunt it because they didn’t need the external validation (or something)
Keep in mind that different areas of the U.S. have different cultures. The sort of wealthy person who chooses to live in Colorado has chosen to live there for a reason — because they enjoy the outdoorsy culture of Colorado. Wealthy people who live in New York City don’t go camping or wear flannel.
How do you know they were wealthy? I’m also Mexican but from Jalisco, in American culture people who dress super flashy and have nice cars are often the poorest. Seeing a brand new Escalade parked in front of a trailer park is something you won’t ever see here
Different class indicators. Rich people in the US live in certain zip codes, shop in certain stores, and those camping trips? Some of them can be more expensive than you realize. The brands are also different, Gucci would be considered pretty low class.
US does not have such a clear class system like some other countries, although there are some uber rich Americans who act like your description of rich people. Colorado is known for attracting very outdoorsy people, so many of the wealthy people there moved there because of their love for the outdoors and outdoorsy activities. Those activities can be expensive and nice properties in marquee locations there are expensive, so they choose to invest in their passion rather than appearance of being rich. I know a ton of Americans in the top 1% or higher class who don’t care about social class prestige and just want to enjoy their money on stuff they like rather than flaunting it. Many of them shop at Costco and Kohls and you’d never even realize they’re rich til they mention some expensive hobbies.
Because class isn’t the big deal in America it is in other countries.
What you describe in Monterrey is similar to the wealthy in the NE US. I think the behavior you describe both in the US and MX is likely quite regional.
Because Protestants. Money is vulgar. Of course people want to show off, so it’s done with the class distinctions like having the best tent, being able to afford to take off work and hike the Appalachian trail, etc.
America’s culture pushes equality as a value, so flaunting your wealth is seen as being in poor taste.
Of course, we are hypocrites about this and have plenty of wealth inequality. We just don’t like to show it.
That being said, there are a lot of regional differences in the USA about how wealth is shown and how much wealth is shown.
Rich people in the US grow up being told outright not to advertise their wealth, it’s seen as trashy. Also I’m going to question your “dress like hobos” comment, something tells me their clothes aren’t stained and falling apart, rather they probably look like everyday working man’s clothes but from places like Eddie Bauer, if not more exclusive like “so exclusive only other rich folk recognize it”. Again the point is that you don’t flaunt designer merch, rather you wear high end and designer merch that other rich people will clock but the poors will not.
Some of it is because of the borderline fetishization of the rural poor. There’s this image of a “real American” being a farmer, rancher, or bushman that goes back to our country’s founding, in contrast to the “costal elites” with their more “European” styles. Some of this is because rich Americans don’t want the poors to know they have money, under the belief they’ll be hit up for cash or pestered.
Some of it is because there’s a certain feeling of security rich white Americans have in their wealth; they don’t feel the need to “prove” they have money to others, their wealth speaks for itself. There’s also the fact that any middle class, even lower middle class, person could bankrupt themselves by taking out loans on flashy designer goods and high end cars, and people do it all the time. The real show of wealth in most of the U.S. is in who you know, the connections you have.
The standard Arcteryx shell jackets I see around town cost $500-$800. The decked out Sprinter van can easily cost $200,000. Wealthy people in Colorado are still making purchases that signal wealth, it’s just not in the same ways you’re used to. It may just be that the way to signal wealth in Colorado (or Washington State for that matter) is different than it is in Mexico.
And I’d argue that, at least where I live, upper middle class and wealthy people really aren’t mingling with poor people. They may not be living in gated enclaves, but they are living in the parts of cities where the cost of living prevents them from encountering actual poverty on a day to day basis. There’s technically nothing stopping poor people from shopping at the high-end grocery store, or eating at the exciting, innovative new restaurant, or walking their dog in the residential neighborhood where the average house costs $2.5 million dollars, so it’s easy to pretend they’re not actually in a bubble at all.