Recently back from my annual trip to San Martin de Porres (Lima) to visit family, some of whom move back and forth between there and Argentina, own or operate small businesses in each country, take advantage of the rights whatever limited integration Mercosur memberships confers, work budget airlines to best effect, switch things around as COL or business costs change across the two countries, and generally display a similar zeitgeist we might associate with mobility across national borders in, say, Europe. They are not the only ones doing that, and Peruvians are not the only expats from the region present in Argentina.
While in Lima, a neighbor introduced himself. He said he recently moved back to this, his dangerous childhood neighbourhood, to be close to his new grandchild after 40 years in Arizona working as a medical interpreter and part-time musician. He said he will be going back once a year to file his US tax return (it wasn’t clear why he saw the need to do that in person, but no matter, that is his plan). He may have looked like an immigrant for over four decades and perhaps even considered himself one, but it turns out he was a Peruvian expat living in the USA all along.
Categories and labels dissolve before our eyes.