Raising Black kids safely in Merida is the reason Kaysan and Stephanie give for leaving California behind. Kaysan is a Chicago native from a first generation Jamaican American family who moved to California for work about twenty years ago. Stephanie was born and raised in the Bay Area. The two met, moved to Sacramento to buy a home and start a family, and built a life there for several years, blending Kaysan's three older children from a previous marriage with the two children they have together.

Stephanie is honest about what pushed her to start looking elsewhere. After the 2016 election, she says she stopped feeling safe in her own neighborhood, even in what she describes as a liberal area, and found herself wanting something simple: to be seen as human first, not constantly on guard because of her race. A walk and a conversation with a friend, one her friend does not even remember having, planted the idea of Merida. She went home, fell down a YouTube rabbit hole of videos showing Black families already living there, and started sending them to Kaysan.

They visited Merida for the summer in 2022 and did not want to leave. Back in California, Stephanie says she could not unsee it, and within about two years they had sold their home outright and made the move for good. The decision was not reckless. They started cautiously, renting out their house as a safety net in case the move did not work out, before eventually letting go of the house and most of their belongings entirely. What they got in return, they say, was real happiness they had not found while making good money and staying busy in the United States.

The two bring up specific numbers when they talk about raising kids in Merida. Soccer runs about eight dollars a month here, compared to three hundred dollars or more for a single activity back home, and a chef and a housekeeper, a luxury they associate with wealth in the US, are common and affordable in Merida. That frees up time they say they never had before to actually be present with their children. Kaysan is especially direct about school. His youngest, his only son, was already being treated differently by teachers in a US kindergarten because he is a young Black boy, and Kaysan says there is no amount of safety planning that fixes that kind of treatment in an American classroom. Their children are homeschooled now, part of a pod community in Merida that shares tutors, takes trips together, and holds a weekly Thursday night play night their kids refuse to miss.

When asked what they would tell other Black families who have the means to move but are still afraid, Kaysan turned down the dramatic framing and kept it simple: don't make it more complicated than it has to be, go for a few weeks or a few months, and you will know. Stephanie agrees that once you feel that kind of peace, it is hard to go back. If raising your kids safely and affordably is something you are still only dreaming about, what is stopping you from trying it for yourself?