Speaking the same language

MEXICO CITY — The signs are unmistakable: an NFL game at Azteca Stadium, soaring land prices from Ensenada to Merida and a Starbucks infestation of the swanky Polanco neighborhood.

Though most Americans are aware of the growing "Latinization" of the United States, a parallel phenomenon is taking place on the other side of the border. Already, at least half a million U.S. ex-patriots and long-term visitors make their homes in Mexico (plus another half-million Canadians). That number will soar as millions of retired baby boomers stampede south in the coming decades, remaking the cultural landscape in their own image.

Yet one thing this exile community has conspicuously lacked, until now, is an English-language print journal to call its own. A handful of English-language newspapers and magazines from the U.S. are available here, including the New York Times and the Miami Herald's international edition. But Mexico's oldest, most visible niche English publication, the 53-year-old tabloid-style News, folded four years ago and hasn't fully been replaced.

"We were frankly surprised at the numbers, for the sheer size of the market," says Margot, the company's president and managing editor, who like her husband never had worked for a newspaper before. "This is the kind of opportunity that comes along only once in a lifetime."

The couple -- who met, married and moved to Mexico to open their new business all within a whirlwind span between 2003 and 2005, culminating in a 4,000-mile trip in a new Honda Element -- seem determined to make the most of their singular chance.

Working out of their home in the fin de siecle Roma neighborhood with a core staff of eight, evenly divided between Americans and Mexicans, they've produced a lively, attractive, 40-page gazette that offers something for both first-time sightseers as well as gringos who've gone fully native.

Unlike other past or present English-language papers, Inside Mexico targets ex-pats as much as casual tourists and business people. And its feature-y writing style and emphasis on the arts, culture and lifestyles rather than hard news is more redolent of magazines than newspapers.