Many people dream of moving abroad in search of paradise, but your story shows us what it truly takes to build a home. Welcome, Bruce, and thank you for taking the time to sit down with me today.
On Chaos
Question: You chose to move from the USA to Spain and Portugal, two countries whose combined population is slightly less than that of California and Florida together. Don’t you miss the chaos?
Bruce:
Not a bit! We have our fair share of internal chaos in the towns and villages where we live in Portugal and Spain: Periodic festas and ferias that disrupt the tranquility for weeks on end … Portuguese and Spanish people who take to the streets to argue and bicker in front of their neighbors … People accompanying their unleashed dogs on walks and not picking up after them… mild-mannered people who become demons when driving … the ubiquitous frustrations of the bureaucracy in otherwise tranquil, democratic states.
On Shift & Identity
Q: In your writing, you emphasize the distinction between being an ‘expat’ who plans to return and an ‘immigrant’ who isn’t looking back. At what exact moment did your mindset shift from a temporary ‘vacation bolt’ to realising Iberia was home for good?
Bruce:
LOL! You want a specific moment? I’d say it was when realized we could drive through the traffic roundabouts everywhere without fear. They no longer threatened us. In some ways, the moment you refer to happened to us almost immediately upon arriving in Portugal with our D7 residency visas. Even before emigrating from the USA, however, we saw the handwriting on the wall and doubted that we could ever move back there.
Unlike some expats – immigrants, too, no doubt – we didn’t rent a property but purchased a house which, over time, we turned into our home. We got to know our neighbors, participate in the local culture and community, and made a point to speak their language, not ours, no matter how wrong our vocabulary or how awful our pronunciation. That, too, contributed to a shift in mindset.
If I had to identify a period of time when we realized that we were immigrants here to stay and put down roots in Portugal and Spain rather than “try them on for size” expats here for a time and a purpose, I would say that occurred during our fourth or fifth year living in the EU.
We never returned to the USA—not even to visit family and friends. We had invested financially in both Portugal and Spain with primary residences and rental properties. In parallel universes, the United States under Trump had become a wasteland of incorrigibles – crooks, thieves, authoritarians – where the country was ever more divided between the rich and the poor, the 1% v. the rest of us, those who arrogantly leaned extreme right v. those who, just as steadfastly, leaned progressively left. The Doomsday Clock was ticking under a president who didn’t give a damn for anything but his personal fortune or anyone except his egocentric self and immediate family. Meanwhile, on this side of the great pond, we had become increasingly accustomed to the ways and means and political consensus achieved through coalition-building. Despite disputes and disagreements and some (expected) corruption, we came to believe that these two socialist democracies cared for their people and put the people’s welfare above their own.
On Cultural Hurdles
Q: You’ve written somewhere that ‘paradise is never as simple as the postcards suggest’. What has been the most frustrating cultural or bureaucratic hurdle you had to overcome while settling into life in Southwestern Europe?
Bruce:
In a word, I guess that would boil down to the bureaucracy. Never getting anything right the first time around … at least, according to one government official. Go to another official working elsewhere for the same department or agency, and you’d get a different set of answers.
Trying to sort out required responses and actions by email, only never to receive a reply because, in these cultures, emails go ignored often is another pet peeve and bugaboo. Attempting to get answers by telephone, instead, but nobody picks up on the other end. Or the phone is answered by an automated bot that only speaks Portuguese (or Spanish) and can’t understand your answers to pre-determined questions, so the call gets disconnected instead.
Living in a “foreign” country means learning how to persist and persevere. Have a complaint about a purchase or service from a merchant? Use Portugal’s Livro de Reclamações or (consumer advocate) Deco Proteste. Most importantly, get to know your neighbors—that’s essentially how you come to understand their culture and the way things work (or don’t) hereabouts.
On Culinary Tastes
Q: A few thoughts on Portuguese vs. Spanish food and how drastically does American food culture differ by comparison?
Bruce:
How drastically? By tons! Our digestive tracts have rid themselves of so much gluten, so many preservatives, and such high cholesterol since living in Portugal and Spain. Nonetheless, since I’m neither vegan nor a fish fancier, my food choices here are rather limited. I must confess, I’m not particularly a fan of Portuguese food, which, to me, neither looks, smells, nor tastes appetizing. Spanish food is more to my liking. Maybe that’s because of the tapas?
Sometimes, of course, I do crave a thick and juicy American hamburger, a pastrami sandwich, a heaping of mac-and-cheese, a Nathan’s all-beef hot dog. The fast-food franchises that pass for American food here in Portugal and Spain – Burger King, McDonald’s, Popeyes, KFC, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Domino’s Pizza, Taco Bell, et al – aren’t really “food,” as far as I’m concerned. They’re AI applied to machines that do the cooking. Human robots do packaging. Ironically, if you go to a food court in Iberia where American fast-food franchises stand side-by-side with eateries serving the country’s traditional foods, you’ll find more young folks lined up at the digital kiosks, ordering USA-style meals. If only they knew the difference!
On Words of Advice
Q: To close with a bit of ‘food for thought’: for Americans looking at the current political landscape and dreaming of an escape, what is the single most important truth they need to hear before packing their bags?
Bruce:
Look before you leap. And understand carefully that relocation is more about where and why you’re moving to than it is where and why you’re moving from. You must be able to explain the whys.
An entire chapter in my latest book, Fado & Flamenco: Living Abroad in Portugal or Spain, tells the stories of nearly a dozen people who moved to Iberia … for all the wrong reasons. While they had everything going for them in their new countries, they couldn’t adjust and adapt. They became unhappy. So, they returned to their homelands or moved on to somewhere else.
The stuff that fills guidebooks, blogs, podcasts, and social media groups are nothing more than moments in time, brief snapshots which flood and flicker, beckoning us like lanterns and lighthouses. But they’re paid promotions.
It takes a lot more than pretty postcards, however, to become settled and comfortable – even happy – in Portugal or Spain, homelands to others … but not ours. As with the time-consuming red tape of these alluring lands, it can take years to be able to say with conviction, “This is my home.”
* Expat: Leaving the USA For Good is a candid non-fiction expatriate guide written by Bruce H. Joffe and published by New Generation Publishing in 2019.
Website: https://sites.google.com/view/bruce-h-joffe
Bruce H. Joffe’s books so far: https://amoz.onl/78x
‘My next book, Spamming and Scamming Your Book, is quite different from anything else I’ve written of late. In fact, in some ways it harkens back to my years of teaching marketing, public relations, and communications on the university level.’ – Bruce H. Joffe, author, Associate Professor of Communication (Retired):
Mary Baldwin University, George Mason University,
The American University, Carthage College,
Kaplan College.
