“Young, Deported, and Learning to Code”
Rest of World
30 March 2021
“I can still picture the color of the sky in southwest Detroit,” he says. “I’m a grown man, but I cried. I felt like my life was over.” But three years after his deportation, Figueroa draws a salary double average in Mexico and lives in the country’s highest-income postal code. “I’m rockin’ it,” he says. Despite his earlier misfortunes, Figueroa seems to have found the “American Dream” — south of the Rio Grande, as one of Mexico’s new class of offshore coders.
Programming jobs are seen as abundant, stable, and well-paid — a surefire entry into the upper-middle class both in the U.S. as well as Mexico. But coding didn’t come to Mexico by chance. The outsourcing of software engineering is the latest iteration of a century-old pattern of U.S. industries moving labor-intensive operations to Mexico. Multinational companies profit from moving stable, middle-class work abroad. And in Mexico, return migrants — who are often fully bilingual and have experience working for U.S. companies — make particularly attractive candidates for this “nearsourced” work.
Rest of World
30 March 2021
“I can still picture the color of the sky in southwest Detroit,” he says. “I’m a grown man, but I cried. I felt like my life was over.” But three years after his deportation, Figueroa draws a salary double average in Mexico and lives in the country’s highest-income postal code. “I’m rockin’ it,” he says. Despite his earlier misfortunes, Figueroa seems to have found the “American Dream” — south of the Rio Grande, as one of Mexico’s new class of offshore coders.
Programming jobs are seen as abundant, stable, and well-paid — a surefire entry into the upper-middle class both in the U.S. as well as Mexico. But coding didn’t come to Mexico by chance. The outsourcing of software engineering is the latest iteration of a century-old pattern of U.S. industries moving labor-intensive operations to Mexico. Multinational companies profit from moving stable, middle-class work abroad. And in Mexico, return migrants — who are often fully bilingual and have experience working for U.S. companies — make particularly attractive candidates for this “nearsourced” work.
Caroline Eaton Tracey writes about environment, migration, art, and literature in the US Southwest, Mexico, and the borderlands between the two. She speaks and works in English, Spanish, and Russian.
Caroline’s reporting appears in the New Yorker, n+1, the Atlantic, and elsewhere, as well as in Spanish in Mexico’s Nexos. In 2022-2023 she was the climate justice fellow at High Country News. In 2022 she was awarded the Waterston Prize for Desert Writing and in 2023 she received Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Fellowship in Journalism and Human and Civil Rights. She is also an editor-at-large at Zócalo Public Square.
Her essays appear in the Kenyon Review Online, Shenandoah, New South, and elsewhere. “A River Passes By Here” was runner-up in the 2020 Financial Times/Bodley Head essay contest and “The Ephemeral Forever” won Ruminate Magazine’s 2021 VanderMey Nonfiction Contest. Her art writing has appeared in Nexos, SFMOMA’s Open Space, and Burlington Contemporary, and her book reviews appear in the European Review of Books and the Nation.
Caroline holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives with her wife, Mexican architect and sculptor Mariana GJP, between Tucson, Arizona and Mexico City.
She is currently seeking representation for her manuscript SALT LAKES, which combines personal narrative and science journalism to provide a new, queer perspective on climate change in arid environments, and a book proposal about the US-Mexico borderlands.
Ask her about sugar beets.
Caroline’s reporting appears in the New Yorker, n+1, the Atlantic, and elsewhere, as well as in Spanish in Mexico’s Nexos. In 2022-2023 she was the climate justice fellow at High Country News. In 2022 she was awarded the Waterston Prize for Desert Writing and in 2023 she received Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Fellowship in Journalism and Human and Civil Rights. She is also an editor-at-large at Zócalo Public Square.
Her essays appear in the Kenyon Review Online, Shenandoah, New South, and elsewhere. “A River Passes By Here” was runner-up in the 2020 Financial Times/Bodley Head essay contest and “The Ephemeral Forever” won Ruminate Magazine’s 2021 VanderMey Nonfiction Contest. Her art writing has appeared in Nexos, SFMOMA’s Open Space, and Burlington Contemporary, and her book reviews appear in the European Review of Books and the Nation.
Caroline holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives with her wife, Mexican architect and sculptor Mariana GJP, between Tucson, Arizona and Mexico City.
She is currently seeking representation for her manuscript SALT LAKES, which combines personal narrative and science journalism to provide a new, queer perspective on climate change in arid environments, and a book proposal about the US-Mexico borderlands.
Ask her about sugar beets.
Caroline Eaton Tracey escribe sobre el medioambiente, la migración, el arte y la literatura en México, el Suroeste de Estados Unidos y la frontera entre ellos. Habla ingles, español y ruso.
Sus artículos aparecen en The New Yorker, n+1 y The Atlantic, entre otros lugares. En español escribe frecuentemente para la revista Nexos. En 2022-2023, cubría la justicia climática para la revista High Country News. En 2022 ganó el Premio Waterston por Escritura del Desierto y en 2023 recibió la beca Ira A. Lipman de periodismo de derechos humanos y civiles de Columbia University. También colabora como editora en Zócalo Public Square.
Sus ensayos aparecen en Kenyon Review Online, Shenandoah y New South, entre otros lugares. “Aquí Pasa Un Río” ganó segundo lugar en el premio de ensayo Financial Times/Bodley Head de 2020; en 2021 “Lo Efímero, Para Siempre” ganó el concurso de no-ficción VanderMey de Ruminate Magazine. Sus reseñas y ensayos sobre el arte han aparecido en Nexos, Open Space (plataforma del Museo de Arte Moderno de San Francisco) y Burlington Contemporary, y sus reseñas literarias en European Review of Books y The Nation.
Caroline es Doctora en Geografía de la Universidad de California–Berkeley. Vive con su esposa, la arquitecta y escultora mexicana Mariana GJP, entre Tucson, Arizona y la Ciudad de México.
Actualmente busca publicar su manuscrito de no-ficción sobre los lagos salados y está preparando una propuesta para un libro sobre la zona fronteriza México-Estados Unidos.
Pregúntale sobre betabeles.
Sus artículos aparecen en The New Yorker, n+1 y The Atlantic, entre otros lugares. En español escribe frecuentemente para la revista Nexos. En 2022-2023, cubría la justicia climática para la revista High Country News. En 2022 ganó el Premio Waterston por Escritura del Desierto y en 2023 recibió la beca Ira A. Lipman de periodismo de derechos humanos y civiles de Columbia University. También colabora como editora en Zócalo Public Square.
Sus ensayos aparecen en Kenyon Review Online, Shenandoah y New South, entre otros lugares. “Aquí Pasa Un Río” ganó segundo lugar en el premio de ensayo Financial Times/Bodley Head de 2020; en 2021 “Lo Efímero, Para Siempre” ganó el concurso de no-ficción VanderMey de Ruminate Magazine. Sus reseñas y ensayos sobre el arte han aparecido en Nexos, Open Space (plataforma del Museo de Arte Moderno de San Francisco) y Burlington Contemporary, y sus reseñas literarias en European Review of Books y The Nation.
Caroline es Doctora en Geografía de la Universidad de California–Berkeley. Vive con su esposa, la arquitecta y escultora mexicana Mariana GJP, entre Tucson, Arizona y la Ciudad de México.
Actualmente busca publicar su manuscrito de no-ficción sobre los lagos salados y está preparando una propuesta para un libro sobre la zona fronteriza México-Estados Unidos.
Pregúntale sobre betabeles.