Mexico, a country for immigrant business: Small-scale entrepreneurs and self-employed workers from Southern Europe

Abstract

Mexico has not traditionally been seen as a country of immigration, even though it has hosted well-rooted immigrant communities since the late 19th century (Palma Mora, 2006) and it has been both a haven for exiles (Yankelevich, 2002) and a transit country for Central Americans on their way north (Carrasco González, 2013; Barros Nock and Escobar Latapí, 2017). US citizens are the main foreign nationality in the country; a large portion of them are retired people living in Mexico’s northern region (e.g. Lardiés-Bosque et al., 2016), tourist coastal areas (Hiernaux, 2010) and well-known “enclaves” such as San Miguel de Allende (Guanajuato). In this regard, it is worth mentioning that a substantial part of the US-born residents in Mexico are of Mexican descent (Gaspar Olvera, 2019).