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Monday, November 09, 2009

Turns Out Abuelita Knew Best After All

By Yvette Doss
Progressive Media Project
          We need to get back to a simpler way of living.
        My Mexican grandparents had a distrust of financial institutions, a tradition of living day-to-day and only buying what they had money for, a reluctance to borrow money and an allergy to credit cards.
        Maybe our abuelitas and abuelitos had it right all along.
        Spend little.
        Live simply.
        Don't ride the stock market (maybe even keep your money under a mattress).
        Don't use that credit card (if you can't afford the flat-screen TV, do without).
        Pool your resources by living communally.
        And maybe, just maybe, you'll survive this economic downturn the way Mexicans have historically survived unstable economies in the old country.
        This summer, as my family and I were planning a move back to California, I assessed the housing stock in the neighborhood in Los Angeles County where we used to live. Rental prices had dropped right along with home purchase prices.
        Middle class families in the neighborhood — victims of the nearly 10 percent jobless rate we find ourselves facing nationwide — were in trouble financially and couldn't afford their own homes. Many were moving in with parents, abandoning the nuclear home for the security of multigenerational family living.
        It reminded me of the Mexican immigrant families I have known throughout the years who were already doing just that: pooling resources to live under one roof with grandparents or grown siblings and their families, every one pitching in to provide free child care for the kids.
        It was a fact of life that many non-Mexicans in Southern California often looked down on, sneering that the neighborhood was going to pot.
        Now it's a model to consider.
        So, too, is staying away from credit cards. While Latinos have been hard hit by the housing and unemployment crisis, researchers in a recent Pew Hispanic Center study found that Latinos hold less credit card and installment loan debt overall, and, in fact, are much more likely to have none at all.
        If we return to the ways of our grandparents, we may just be able to weather the changing state of our economy — and forge a path to saner financial habits for all.
        Yvette Doss is a writer for Progressive Media Project, a source of liberal commentary on domestic and international issues; it is affiliated with The Progressive magazine. McClatchy-Tribune News Service