The mExpats Postcard Campaign
All good cutting-edge creative projects need a promotional postcard campaign, and mExpats is no exception!
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If you are one of the fortunate folks to be receiving these in the mail, hang on to them.
They will surely become a collector's item!!!
mExpats Episode 1: Opportunity
In 1992 when I graduated,
the job market sucked.
However, Mexico was
joining NAFTA and wanted
help modernizing its economy. It welcomed me and other young expats.
In episode 1 we get to know some of the odd characters that went south to seek their fortunes.
mExpats Episode 2: The Crisis
In 1994, Mexico joined NAFTA. That same year:
• Civil war broke out in the south.
• The leading presidential candidate was assassinated.
• The peso was devalued, and economic chaos ensued.
However, Josh is determined not to let a historic financial crisis ruin his Christmas.
God bless us, everyone!
mExpats Episode 4: Hoarding
In March 1995, as part of an effort to contain the inflation unleashed by the peso devaluation, Mexico announces plans to raise the national sales tax to 15%.
Josh gets wind of this and heads straight to Sam’s Club to buy a year’s worth of food.
What’s on the menu?
A carton of Kraft American Singles — because nothing says "financial security" like 120 slices of sleaze cheese!
mExpats Episode 5: The Apartment
While the rest of the renters in the building are quickly scared off, Josh and Steve see this as a great chance to learn a bit about the Mexican legal system!
Josh’s righteous indignation inspires him to write a song for their new arch-nemesis:
Dumb Yuck Eduardo!
(Don’t worry — we’re keeping it PG for the kids.)
mExpats Episode 6: Law & Order
Before being featured in Startup.com (and long before becoming a convicted felon), Kaleil Isaza Tuzmán was Josh’s roommate during a semester abroad at El Colegio de México.
Kaleil is outraged that Constitutional Law professor Samuel del Villar is a chain smoker. In this episode he sets out to get smoking banned in class.
Can you see where this is going?!
mExpats Episode 7: The Dart
Money doesn't go as far as it used to, but Josh and his roommate John Moody want to pool their resources to buy a used car.
They are hell-bent on finding an early 1970s Dodge Dart. Because who wouldn’t want a gas-guzzling tank in the middle of a Peso crisis?
mExpats Episode 7: The Dart
The economy may be melting down, but Josh's career in Mexico is soaring! He's briefing cabinet ministers and hobnobbing with corporate CEOs. Still, he’d trade it all in a heartbeat to be a rock-n-roller.
Episode 8 digs into the roots of Josh’s identity crisis, transporting us back to Poughkeepsie, NY in the 1970s.
Maybe it all started the day American Pie composer Don McLean sang at Josh’s circumcision. After that, an ordinary life just wouldn’t cut it!
mExpats Episode 10: San Mateo Tlaltenango
Josh has joined a funk-rock band in Mexico! After months of playing to empty rooms, singer Raúl signs them up with Mexico City’s Office of Cultural Affairs, hoping to score a gig at a downtown hotspot.
Instead, they’re sent to a tiny village in the mountains on the edge of the city.
Will they win over the locals — or watch the crowd wander off to a nearby cockfight?!
mExpats Episodes 12 - 13:
Riding the Wave & The Big Time
With Super-Chicken on bass, Josh’s band is unstoppable! Here they are yucking it up with the crew of Coca-Cola’s Liquid Rock show on Azteca TV.
Not long ago, rock music was banned in Mexico and one network ruled the airwaves. But NAFTA shook things up, and now Josh’s band is riding the wave of liberalization toward rock stardom.
Hang on tight — things are about to get truly unbelievable!
mExpats Episode 14: The Promise of NAFTA
Despite opening for Mexican rock legends Maná at the National Auditorium, Josh’s band still can’t land a record deal.
Disillusioned, he begins questioning why he’s still in Mexico — and rethinks everything he believed about the promise of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Josh has an epiphany about the future of global trade — and shares it on Mexico City’s top radio program.
What follows is truly mind-blowing!!!
mExpats Episode 17: Exodus
After 5 years in a turbulent and changing Mexico, Josh decides it is time to embark on the next chapter of his life.
He proceeds northwards in his 1973 Dodge Dart on a journey of biblical proportions!
30 years later the details of his experience will fade - leaving an idyllic and simplified vision of his time as a Mexican executive.
Only after finding his old home video recordings in the basement will Josh piece together what it all meant!
The Hero's Journey: A Kind of Good Analysis and Epilogue to the mExpats Series
I bet you didn't see this coming!
Not only is mExpats extremely relevant in this era of retreating free trade — it’s also timeless. It follows the narrative arc of the Hero’s Journey to a T, just as Joseph Campbell described it in his classic The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
And true to Campbell’s word, our hero returns from Mexico with the elixir of enlightenment and boons to share with his fellow man.
The mExpats journey ends here — and Josh drops the meaning of life!!! Don't miss it!