I did an interview on the My Latin Life podcast. We covered familiar territory to this blog, but there is new, politically incorrect takes to make it worth a listen.
My greatest regret and first observation was that I need a microphone. I have a microphone, but I forgot to use it. I also need voice training if I’m going to build the podcast. I raise my volume when I get excited, and I trail off into low volume at the end of sentences. It’s hard to listen to.
I talk a lot about being a “tiger dad,” which I haven’t done much of here. At one point in the interview I said something I want to clarify. I said “Latin Americans are not the best at anything.” Venezuela is the best as baseball and Argentina is the best as soccer right now, and Mexico often produces the best boxers. So Latin Americans are often the best at sports.
Depending how you measure it, Bad Bunny is in the top echelon of active musicians, joining Shakira and Julio Iglesias as Latin American singers who have achieved global success. Latin Americans currently lead InBev and Grupo Modelo, so you could say they’re the best at selling beer. I’d argue they aren’t the best at business so much as managing a declining industry, but …
My point was that, in general, Latin Americans are low-achievement people. “They’re not the best at anything” isn’t literally true, but it is figuratively. They aren’t as aggressive in setting their children up for success, and you see that in the sheer quantity of deadbeats. There are tradeoffs to being a tiger dad, which I’ve accepted. I’m not saying which way is better, but we have chosen high achievement.
I also misspoke about the size of the archive. I mentioned 700 pages, but that was just the first six months of this blog’s posts. By that math, I’ve probably written over 20,000 pages between this blog and my books.
Vance and I discuss expat life before smartphones, our motivations for moving to the United States, classism, being a tiger dad, the gringo bubble, American materialism and more. Listen to the interview on:
… or listen on YouTube below.
I offered a free PDF of “Mad Outta Me Head: Addiction and Underworld from Ireland to Colombia” to anyone who leaves a comment on this interview anywhere:
Big thanks to My Latin Life for having us on. Follow him here:
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