Meet your bi-lingual Mexican-American hosts. We are a group of friends who want to share with you our passion for, and knowledge of, Mexican culture, society, politics and government. We work with a large network of professional associates, each of whom has special knowledge and/or expertise in the areas relevant to your goals for living in México.
MICHAEL MEURER, CO-FOUNDER
Michael is a co-founder of Mexican American Dreams. He is a US citizen as well as a permanent legal resident of Mexico. He is an internationally published, bi-lingual political analyst and communications strategist focused on civic and media innovation. He has traveled widely studying citizen-driven civic innovation in Europe and the Americas.
Michael has consulted for and/or managed political and organizing campaigns over the past 20 years at local, state and national levels in the US through Meurer Group & Associates, his Los Angeles based political and communications consultancy. He also works with a network of partners in México through his Latinos Votando project.
Based on his broad experience in capacity building and political startups, Michael founded the Reimagining Politics project in 2017, as a non-profit, crowd-funded educational initiative focused on civic innovation and new models of citizen-driven political engagement worldwide.
During a worldwide research tour for Reimagining Politics that began in Paris in 2016, Michael traveled through much of México and South America. In the decade before becoming a legal resident in 2016, he also traveled and lived in many parts of Mexico, from a fishing village in the Nayarit to Guadalajara, Oaxaca, Puerto Vallarta and Mexico City.
A flood of friends visiting Mexico from across the world who sought Michael’s guidance on everything from restaurants and culture to Mexican housing, residency, crypto investment and medical insurance led directly to his interest in helping others discover and settle in Mexico.
FERNANDA SANTOYO, CO-FOUNDER
Fernanda has a BA in Operatic Singing from the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City under the chair of world renowned tenor Octavio Arevalo. She also received an MA in operatic singing from the College of Chinese and Asean Arts (2020-2022) under a Chinese government scholarship as one of the winners of a global competition and search for talented new opera singers.
Fernanda is Founder of Acappella Music Academy, offering mentorship and voice training to students of all ages across Latin America.
She is also Founder of the pathbreaking Óperachera project combining beloved opera and ranchera songs in an entirely new cross cultural art form. The project will launch with a full PR and publicity campaign and a national tour in México this year.
Fernando also served the nation as a singer participating in concerts across Mexico with the national choir of the Mexican Navy Secretariat from 2018 to 2021.
Fernanda’s Master’s Thesis on the history of castrati singers used by the Roman Catholic Church during the late medieval, early renaissance period as the forebears of the modern mezzo-soprano voice has received accolades worldwide and will be expanded and published as a book in 2023.
Fernanda grew up in rural San Luis Potosí and was mentored from infancy by her grandmother and grandfather, educators who shared their deep love for, and knowledge of, Mexican history and culture. She continued her studies of Mexican history in private prepatory schools and has traveled the length and breadth of Mexico.
Her exuberant passion for, and in-depth knowledge of, both popular and formal Mexican culture is infectious. Whether you want an evening of Opera or classical music or a night at a mariachi club enjoying Ranchera, Fernanda is likely to know the performers and/or be invited to sing with them.
She is also a “foodie” who can introduce our guests to everything ranging from Five Star restaurants to street mercados offering roasted tarantula. From the elegant salons of Polanquito to the “altares de la santa muerte” in Tepito, few people are as knowledgeable nor as passionate about Mexican culture and history. For musicians seeking custom, hand crafted Mexican guitars, Fernanda is also the perfect guide.
Fernanda also acts as Music Director for our Transcendent Wedding events
MARÍA BALAM, CO-FOUNDER
María is a celebrated Mexican actress who graduated with honors from the National School of Theater Arts (ENAT – INBA) in Coyoacán. She was born in Guadalajara but lives in Mexico City.
She is founder and artistic director of the theater company ÁBSIDE and a grantee of the 2021 Scenic Creators program. María is also the creator of Unipersonal Rosaura, Desciende. In addition, she stars with the co-lead character Malena in the Netflix series Against the Ropes.
As an actress, María has participated in works of international relevance and has had a consistent presence in festivals and stage productions in Mexico and Spain under the direction of creators such as Carlos Saura, Gilberto Guerrero, Marc Chornet, Emmanuel Márquez, Xavier Villanova and Fernando Sakanassi.
Among the many notable roles in her career are: La Hermosura in “El Gran Teatro del Mundo”; Juana Inés in “Juana Inés, Paraphrase of herself” (Special Mention, Almagro 2018); María in “Villa Woyzeck Town”; Andrómaca in “ Fires”, Nora in “Sweet Companies”. She was the winner with the Co. Teatro Nómada of the 1st Grant for Artistic Creation “Despertalab” with residence in Barcelona where she also collaborated with the Co. Catalana Projecte Ingenu.
María has had major roles in film and television such as “The Asphalt Goddess”, in the series “El juego de las llaves 2”; “Con lugar; “Dogma”; and in the short films “Matus” and “Captain Blackbeard”.
Because she has traveled widely in Europe and México and is part of México’s creative vanguard, María’s knowledge of Mexican culture and history is nearly encyclopedic. She provides our clients with priceless insight and does so with joy.
María’s special cultural knowledge, organizational skills and artistic flair give her an indispensable role in planning our glamorous lux weddings.
XAVIER VILLANOVA, CO-FOUNDER
Xavier was born and educated in Mexico City. He excelled in writing at an early age and was selected as an Honorary Writer by the University of Iowa in 2017 with a scholarship in the Young Creators program of 2020-21 for the Sistema de Apoyos a la Creación y Proyectos Culturales en Dramaturgia. (System of Support for Creation and Cultural Projects in Dramaturgy)
Xavier’s work has an international presence, highlighted by his participation in the Global Latin American Theater Voices at the RoundHouse Theater in London in 2019, his stay as resident author of the prestigious “International Writing Program” of the University of Iowa in 2017 and the registration of his work in the Hispanic Archive of the Library of Congress of the United States digitized in his own voice.
He was awarded the Emilio Carballido UANL National Playwriting Award 2010 and served as advisor to the Latino Theater Conversatory in New York in 2016. He was also a grantee of the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (FONCA) in the FONCA – LARK 2011 Artistic Residences in New York, as well as being a grantee of the Foundation for Mexican Letters in Dramaturgy 2009-10.
As a cultural manager, Xavier developed the platform: Intimate Movement – Art for Non-Conventional Spaces that has been active from 2009 to date, and has explored other theatricalities such as LIVE ONLINE NOW, by LiveStream, Immersion Experiences such as “Villa Woyzeck Town” 2019 and “IDENTITY” 2018. He is the creator of “La Poética del Derrumbe – Teatro en Ruinas” in 2017 and resident artist at the University of the Americas, in Puebla in 2016.
He has been a professor at the Faculty of Cinema, the University of the Cloister of Sor Juana and the University of Communication. As a Director he has worked in non-conventional and institutional spaces, national theater shows and festivals across México. He directs the Theater Company: ABSIDE with which he has worked for the last 18 years.
Xavier is also a certified Master Mezcalier with 11 years of experience in planning, organizing and leading both large and small group tastings and pairings featuring 44 varieties of agave.
Because of his deep cultural expertise, extensive organizational experience and profound knowledge of Mexican culture, both formal and informal, Xavier is executive leader of our exclusive, one of a kind lux Mexican wedding planning.
DALIA SANTIAGO, DIRECTOR OF ARTISTIC EXPERIENCES
Dalia is a designer, marketer and artist from Oaxaca, México. Her lifelong intense interest in nature has also become her main artistic inspiration. Dalia has a degree in marketing from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) and a Masters Degree in Design from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She is the founder of Intrínseca, a studio with the mission of encouraging entrepreneurship in Mexico through the design of strategies and visual systems using Design Thinking and User-Focused Design methodologies. Dalia is also experienced in merchandising and digital products.
She is the founder of Arte Dalia, an artistic space that seeks to generate well-being and inspiration through art and nature using her paintings as a point of entry. Taking Arte Dalia to new levels, she has also developed in person experiences that involve all the senses to create art with meaning and personalized concepts that vary according to the place, people and particular messages to be communicated, often pairing art classes with varying local flavors, from chocolate to mezcal to vino.
Dalia has had the opportunity to live in cities such as Paris, Madrid, Puebla and Oaxaca, giving her a broad perspective on the world and its enormous beauty. These special places have given Dalia her inspiration while opening and a whole world to be illustrated and shared through art. The experience of traveling and living in many different countries has given her a broader and more empathetic idea of what it takes to arrive in a totally new place.
Dalia lives in Oaxaca and is steeped in its culture, but she has built a unique artistic perspective on her Oaxacan base that is truly universal.
HECTOR MONTOYA, DIRECTOR OF TRANSPORTATION
Hector is our director of logistics and transportation. Although we are based in Mexico City, Hector can arrange day or weekend trips to an enormous variety of cities and special interest sites located within a few hours of the City. All transportation is via comfortable SUV, with special consideration for individual needs and requirements.
Hector shares a love for both US and Mexican culture. For many years, he lived in the US, even working for time as a landscaper for Bill Gates. He speaks excellent English and has broad knowledge of, and appreciation for US culture. Having traveled widely within both the US and Mexico, Hector is a perfect bi-cultural, bi-lingual guide for our guests.
For our guests who decide to settle permanently in Mexico, Michael, Fernanda, Laura and Hector draw on a highly skilled, expansive network of professional associates to offer highly personalized, hands-on help with legal residency, medical insurance, housing (renting and buying), banking and finding top educational institutions for children. We even offer special dinners with leading political and social thought leaders when the occasion merits such an event.