Discussion Forums

Have a DREAM

[¡Ask a Mexican!] Special High-School-Graduation Edition

By GUSTAVO ARELLANO Thursday, Jun 3 2010

DEAR MEXICAN: I work at a high school where there are a significant number of students without papers. Two students that I had worked with for four years graduated last June (one was from Mexico, the other from Paraguay), and they are now attending community college. They have both read your books.

My questions are: What do you recommend to undocumented students regarding working here and making money—in this case to help pay for college? Do you suggest they get false documents (Social Security card and number, driver’s license and/or green card)? Do they get a “new” number, or should they use an ITIN if they have one? What is the current going rate for these items—individually or as a package deal? What about quality? Where should they go to buy? Do you have any referrals?

Any other suggestions you may have about this issue would be helpful and appreciated. I hope to share your insight with them both, as well as with other students in the same situation.

El Maestro Gabacho Who Cares for Indocumentados

DEAR GABACHO: So you know your students are in this country illegally, that la migra can nab them and their familias at any moment—and you want them to break the law even further by asking where they can get fake documents? ¡No manches, méndigo! I understand why you want to help these students who you and I know are Americans, yet Know Nothings consider no better than rapist illegals, but asking them to further bury themselves legally is like eating three habaneros and trying to cool down your scorched palate by chomping on some serranos. Getting an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) from the IRS is an option, but you and your students are better off pressuring Congress to pass the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented college students who came to this country as youngsters. Advocating for these Dreamers is one of the most righteous causes in the United States right now because their story represents the greatest chinga tu madre to the Know Nothings’ master Mexi narrative: They’re immigrant kids who learned English, fully assimilated, graduated from high school, pursued higher education and succeeded, and are now virtually indistinguishable from their citizen peers, save for their legal status—and not all of these undocumented kids are Mexicans! Maestro: Guide your former students to dreamactivist.org for more information on how to live as an undocumented college student and to know which senators and representatives to annoy with polite e-mails asking why won’t they co-sponsor the DREAM Act.

DEAR MEXICAN: I teach in barrio high schools, and I’m curious as to why Mexican adolescent males steep themselves in more cologne than a pasha’s harem. Is it for the same reason they wax their eyebrows—overcompensating against the stereotypes of Latinos as noxious and hirsute? Or has metrosexuality arrived in the immigrant community?

Guy Under the Effluence of Rude Odors

DEAR GUERO: If I remember my high-school days correctly, students no longer shower after gym—hence, slathering on cologne has more to do with masking our naturally fecund sweat glands than a subconscious rejection of gender roles. But if you’re wasting your one chance to probe the Grand Poo-Bah of Pendejos with a pregunta on why male Mexican students smell, then no wonder our youth drop out in alarming numbers.

MY MESSAGE TO ALL GRADUATING HIGH-SCHOOL MEXI SENIORS: So you’re brown and proud? Unless you’re going to college after high school, you’re a clown. No excuses, cabrones—if undocumented college students can not only go on to universities, but also graduate, anyone can do it if they set their cabezas to it. Make your parents proud, and fulfill the hopes of your raza—after all, we don’t want the coming Aztlán Liberation Front to be composed of uneducated pendejos.

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, youtube.com/askamexicano or myspace.com/ocwab. Or write to him at: Gustavo Arellano, P.O. Box 1433, Anaheim, CA 92815-1433. Find him on Facebook and Twitter!

Dicking Around With Mexican Curse Words

[¡Ask a Mexican] And other summer-themed Mexi-madness

By GUSTAVO ARELLANO Thursday, Jun 10 2010

DEAR MEXICAN: I worked a summer job during college in the late 1960s in southern Arizona, where most of my co-workers were Mexicans from the state of Sonora. Their favorite expression when something was broken was “No vale verga”—literally, “Not worth dick,” but actually meaning “totally f-cked-up.” What happened with this expression? Forty years later, when I use it around Mexicans living in Southern California or in Mexico, they look at me like I am a gabacho tonto. Pregunta: Was this expression limited to a northern Mexico dialect, or is it simply a colloquialism that went the way of the Hula-Hoop?

Gabacho Confundido

DEAR CONFUSED GABACHO: No, vale verga is still very much around, and you forgot to mention its noun use to denote someone who is a valeverga—who doesn’t give a sh-t about anything. I’ll admit that vale verga isn’t as popular as you might remember it, but only because it’s in a curious realm of the Mexican Spanish vulgarity galaxy. Por one, vale verga’s interjectional meaning is overshadowed by its synonym, vale madre (“worth mother”) because Mexicans have an Oedipal complex that would’ve made Freud forsake cocaine in favor of mescal. And the use of the penis as the object of ridicule in Mexican Spanish slang is very rare; la verga is more commonly the object used by the insulter to harass the insultee—witness “Chupa verga”(“Go s-ck d-ck”), “mamón”(“c-cksucker,” and not the delicious Filipino sponge cake) and “pela” (as in “peel,” but in this case, meaning that the object of derision should peel back the foreskin of a penis so he can chupar verga). Contrast the status of penis in Mexican Spanish cussing, for instance, with that of the boys below—huevón (“big-balled”) signifies a lazy mamón. And since we’re on the topic of cussing and you mentioned Arizona, I’d be derelict in my duties if I didn’t urge all of ustedes to repeat after me: ¡A LA CHINGADA CON ARPAYSO!

DEAR MEXICAN: Mexican seafood rooster look like the perfect summer lunch for a girly-girl like me—cool, light, high in protein, low in carbs—but every time I go to a real Mexican place (the kind where Mexicans are actually customers and not just cooks), the only people eating them are Corona-slamming, 250-pound bruisers in trucker caps and wife-beaters. I’ve never seen a woman eat one of those amazing-looking seafood rooster. Why? My main question for you is this: Would it be a major faux pas/potential threat to someone’s masculinity for me to order one of these?

La Chinita

DEAR CHINITA: No, seafood in Mexico is enjoyed by men and women alike, but the place you’re referring to is a specific genre in Mexican restaurants in los Estados Unidos: the mariscos joint, where women usually exist only as servers with too-low blouses and too-high skirts and the men are there to slurp down food and knock back beers while ogling said servers at all times. Women are allowed as customers, and you won’t get too many stares if you enjoy dinner here, but such a mariscos place is the domain of men, just like certain types of restaurants in other immigrant communities (Vietnamese coffee shops, Middle Eastern hookah lounges) play the same role. But stay away from seafood for a while—or at least make sure that shrimp you eat comes from the Pacific and not the pinche Golfo.

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, youtube.com/askamexicano or myspace.com/ocwab. Or write to him at: Gustavo Arellano, P.O. Box 1433, Anaheim, CA 92815-1433. Find him on Facebook and Twitter!

This column appeared in print as "Special Summer Edition."

Special Douche Edition

[¡Ask a Mexican!] We've got both kinds: feminine hygiene products and Latino Minutemen!

By GUSTAVO ARELLANO Thursday, Jun 17 2010

DEAR MEXICAN: I’m a civil-rights lawyer. I sue the San Diego Minutemen. Whenever the Minutemen are accused of being racist, they always say something like, “I’m part-Hispanic,” or they’ll note that some of their members are Mexican. This last claim is actually true. Some of the most zealous Minutemen are actually Mexican-Americans. I’m 100 percent Irish. I don’t understand why the Mexican members of the Minutemen associate themselves with a group that is so obviously racist. Can you explain?

Mick Who Likes Spics

DEAR MICK: Gracias for legally sparring with the vilest section of the Minuteman movement, but you gotta give us Mexis some credit. Just like micks became some of the most racist, corrupt pogue mahones in America, Mexicans can also hate their recently arrived brethren—it’s called assimilation, and it’s inevitable in this country for even the dumbest mojado. And just like micks can be stupid, so can Mexicans. For instance, a recent Arizona State University study showed that 81 percent of registered Latino voters in the Grand Canyon State oppose its anti-immigrant Senate Bill 1070—the overwhelming majority of la raza, but that still leaves 19 percent of Arizonan wabs supporting a measure that would have them kicked across the Sonoran Desert in a heartbeat. You’ll have to ask each of those voters to explain their irrationality, but I’m happy they exist—as it shows the Know Nothings that Mexicans don’t just reside in one political prism and are actually, you know, human. As for the Know Nothings trotting out tokens or claiming they can’t possibly be racist because they’re “Hispanic” (ever notice how racists can never bring themselves to utter “Latino” when lamely trying to pass themselves off as moderate?): It’s both an appeal to authority and appeal to sympathy, logical fallacies that only the dumbest pendejos use. Like the San Diego Minutemen!

DEAR MEXICAN: The supermarket in my predominantly Mexican neighborhood has an astonishingly large inventory of douches on the shelves of the personal-care aisle. It’s easily 10 times the stock of what the market in a more-Anglo neighborhood a couple of miles away carries. What gives with the douche fixation?

La Gringa

Dear Gabacha: Tú sabes—backward, warped views of human anatomy influenced by culture and religion. The 2006 study “Vaginal Douches and Other Feminine Hygiene Products: Women’s Practices and Perceptions of Product Safety,” published in Maternal and Child Health Journal, found 15 percent of Hispanic (there’s that word again!) women douche, compared with 9.1 percent of gabachas. But the two groups don’t come close to matching the percentage of their negrita sisters who douche: 27.7 pinche percent. The same journal published a study in 2008 titled “Vaginal Douching Among Latina Immigrants,” which tracked the same douching rates for mexicanas. Both cited the reasons I gave, while the U.S. Department of Health and Services opines most women who douche do so in an effort to eliminate vaginal odors and prevent pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. Almost all the science shows that douching is about as healthy for a woman’s panocha as Tapatío, so, Gringa, por favor educate your Mexi hermanas about the risks. And while you’re at it, can you remind them to use protection during sex, especially the younger ones? We’ve got pretty high pregnancy rates, too, tú sabes. . . .

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, youtube.com/askamexicano or myspace.com/ocwab. Or write to him at: Gustavo Arellano, P.O. Box 1433, Anaheim, CA 92815-1433. Find him on Facebook and Twitter!

No Amor for Landon Donovan

[¡Ask a Mexican!] Also, how not to get your pregunta answered

By GUSTAVO ARELLANO Thursday, Jun 24 2010

DEAR MEXICAN: Why do the Mexicans HATE American soccer and “hate” (bolded, underlined and italicized) Landon Donovan?

Uncle Sam’s Army Brat

DEAR GABACHO: Because Mexicans hate Americans—DUH! Geez, this is the literary equivalent of taking a penalty kick at this year’s FIFA World Cup with no goaltender—but I also want to plug Gringos At the Gate, an upcoming documentary answering this very question with game footage and interviews with Mexican and American fútbol fanatics, former soccer stars and your humble scribe. I gave your question un cabezazo over to director Pablo Miralles, who delivered a bicycle kick of an answer (okay, okay: a yellow card for me for too many bad soccer metaphors). “On the first part: The average American doesn’t give a sh-t about fútbol, so how can they be as good or even better than us Mexicans, who are the most passionate and loyal fans?” Miralles asked the Mexican. “As for Donovan, Mexicans will say that the hatred comes from when, in 2004, he pissed on the field of the sacred Estadio Jalisco, home of the revered Chivas de Guadalajara. But the truth, I believe, is that when he won the Golden Boot at the 1999 Under-17 World Cup (being the first player from this part of the world to win such an honor) and later the Best Young Player at the 2002 World Cup, the realization for Mexican fans set in that, for the first time, the best player on the field when the United States played Mexico was NOT a Mexican. It’s one thing to be beat by a bunch of overeducated, hard-working, physical brutos, but the talent, the technical skill, the style—these are the attributes of El Tri. So how can it be this güero is winning these awards, think Mexican fans? Unacceptable!” Pablo, your answer was a GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!

DEAR MEXICAN: Why the F-CK are American Latinos sooooo g-ddamn exclusionary? I cannot stomach ANOTHER Latino awards show. You think Caucasians could have shows like that? F-CK NO!!!! What really set me off was seeing the beautiful and talentless Jessica Alba and others supporting Latino children’s medical causes. G-DDAMN IT, aren’t all kids deserving? F-ck all you a-sholes! REALLY!! F-CK YOU! If this p-ssed me off so much, what the F-CK does it do to the freak Minutemen vigilantes? Please don’t patronize me by saying the separation is necessary for the advancement of Latinos because I know better from experience.

I Hate You, I Really, Really Hate You

DEAR READERS: My promise to ustedes is to answer all of your preguntas, but some are better than others, and the lesser ones fall into the conejo hole for years—like this one. I can’t remember what awards show set off the wab, but I’m assuming it was something held by the fine National Hispanic Media Coalition. I do remember finding I Hate You’s vitriol mildly amusing over a pinche awards ceremony, as if any of them are paragons of modesty. And his reverse-discrimination claim over Alba (believe it or not, the Mexican’s third cousin once removed—now you know where she gets that big smile from!) and other Latino celebrities raising funds for chamacos would be funny if the medical needs of Latino kiddies weren’t so dire compared to gabachos. Finally, his bit about segregation? Markings of a pendejo—ethnic groups in America have celebrated their own culture in banquets and benefits since the Jamestown colonists put up their first post, and Mexi ceremonies of any kind (raza college graduation, quinceañera, or a carne asada Sunday) always have more than a few token gabachos. In fact, I bet you’ll find more gabachos at a wab hoedown than a country-club wedding (sorry, but the help doesn’t count) on any given weekend. I Hate You’s letter, gentle readers, is a letter you shouldn’t write to the Mexican: angry, but with no real reason and yet not enough nastiness to make it truly distinctive. Want me to answer your pregunta sooner rather than later? Be more memorably stupid than I Hate You, be verbose, or write in about little people, Arpayaso, fake green cards or an-l sex.

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, youtube.com/askamexicano or myspace.com/ocwab. Or write to him at: Gustavo Arellano, P.O. Box 1433, Anaheim, CA 92815-1433. Find him on Facebook and Twitter!

Gustavo's Poetry Corner

[¡Ask a Mexican!] You might not be a pinche racist if . . .

By GUSTAVO ARELLANO Thursday, Jul 1 2010

DEAR READERS: Arizona’s pendejos have emboldened hundreds of Know Nothings in the past week to boast to the Mexican that they’re not racist if they support Senate Bill 1070 because, according to them, they believe in the law and they have no problems with immigrants so long as they’re legal. Nosotros los buenos know that argument is almost always demonstrably false, that Americans were bashing swarthy Sicilians even after the immigration officer at Ellis Island signed them through and shortened their name from Favaloro to Faber.

But I feel magnanimous this week. Maybe it’s the pre-Fourth of July Herradura before me, but I’ll indulge the anti-racist protestations of Know Nothings with a test. If—with (profuse) apologies to Rudyard Kipling—if . . .

If you can keep your cabeza when all about you

Is banda and mariachi blaring near you;

If you can see six Mexi kids and their pregnant mom in front of you,

But make allowance for their tough times, too;

If you can wait in the emergency room and not be angered by waiting,

Or, being lied to about a rooster in the back yard, not report to Animal Control those lies,

Or, being hated by Mexican soccer fans, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good in a sombrero nor talk like Glenn Beck, who isn’t too wise;


If you can dream of Ozzie and Harriet America—and not make sueños your master;

If you can think about cars parked on front lawns—without those thoughts causing you pain,

If you can meet with an Aztlanista and an Arizonan disaster

And treat those two babosos just the same:

If you can bear to hear the truth about Mexican assimilation others have spoken

Twisted no longer by pendejos to make a trap for fools,

Or watch our border, broken,

And stoop and build it up with humane tools;



If you can pool your lifetime winnings

And risk it on a business in a barrio where soccer balls get a toss,

And lose and start again at your beginnings

And never blame illegals about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nervios and sinew

To not sell your home long after your white neighbors are gone,

And so hold on when the only English speaker is you

Except for those pochos who say to usted: “Hold pinche on”;



If you can talk with Mexican crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with ICE—nor lose the ability to allow a DREAM Act student’s story to touch;

If neither George Lopez nor “press one for English, two for Spanish” can hurt you;

If truly bigoted relatives count with you, but none too much;

If your local pool gets disturbed every minute

With 60 Mexicans in jeans—and you don’t make them run—

You’re not a racist and truly about laws,

And—which is more—you’re a chingón, cabrón!


Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, youtube.com/askamexicano or myspace.com/ocwab. Or write to him at: Gustavo Arellano, P.O. Box 1433, Anaheim, CA 92815-1433. Find him on Facebook and Twitter!

Gabacha Fiesta Queens?

[¡Ask a Mexican!] Also, hot and sexy Latin chicks on telenovelas!

By GUSTAVO ARELLANO Thursday, Jul 8 2010

DEAR MEXICAN: I’m a (poor) white girl myself, but I have to ask: What’s the deal with all the rich white girls playing such a big role in Fiesta? Why is it always rich, white girls who get crowned? Don’t you think the majority of them should be Mexican girls since it’s Fiesta? Why has this gone on so long? Time for a change in the royalty!

Poor Confused White Girl


DEAR GABACHA: A bit of context for the readers is needed before I proceed. Cabrones: Poor Confused White Girl refers to Fiesta San Antonio, an annual springtime celebration in the River City dating back to the late 1800s that, like the city, has undergone many transformations over the decades. It’s quite the spectacle, but it originally served the specific political purpose of reconciling the city’s contentious past with its Mexicans, from that whole Alamo desmadre to the simultaneous romanticizing and demonizing of the “chile queens,” the original Mexican street-food hawkers immortalized by writers as diverse as Stephen Ambrose and O. Henry. The best treatment of Fiesta is Laura Hernández-Ehrisman’s 2008 book Inventing the Fiesta City: Heritage and Carnival In San Antonio, and it’s a worthwhile read for socio-historical nerds like me.

But why should non-San Antonians care about Fiesta? Because it illustrates America’s eternal bowdlerization project with ethnics. Here in the Southwest, we’re used to gabachos celebrating their vanquished wabs, from Olvera Street in Los Angeles to the cactus-leaning sleeping peons of Tucson to the Hispanic histrionics of Santa Fe and the gabacha queens of Fiesta. But at least those civic boosters liked some aspect of us, no matter how twisted or “Spanish” their fantasy heritage for us was; that was better than the reverse whitewashing happening now, where we see the swarthy masses of the past now lionized as the anti-Mexicans: the immigrants who came to this country greeted with open arms and no discrimination because they were legal. The historical record disproves those narratives no matter how many weepy-moany chain e-mails Know Nothings send contrasting the immigrants of the past with the Mexicans of today. I say, give me the gabacha Fiesta queens over any romanticized Sicilian any day of the semana.

DEAR MEXICAN: I read that Arizona state Senator Russell Pearce is questioning the 14th Amendment, which states that anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen of the United States. I believe the last senator who questioned that law was a cartoon senator on the The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Am I correct?

J.T. Ready Is a Pendejo

DEAR WAB: No, I think you meant Benjamin Tillman, the South Carolina Democrat who liked lynching the way Mexican men like gabachas.

DEAR MEXICAN: How come all the really hot girls are on the Mexican television stations? I watch the Spanish talent shows, news reports and soap operas to see the really hot girls. Compared to the gabacho stations, there is no comparison. Just last night, I compared the local stations’ average women, who look like the majority of the out-of-shape girls I see every day, to the hot, sexy Latin chicks. It’s a bit of a problem in that I end up sitting watching television not knowing what the hell the people are saying—and not really caring.

More of a Paulina Rubio Guy than a Thalia One

DEAR GABACHO: Because Mexican television executives bowdlerize our culture even better than gabachos. The day a telenovela or nationally aired program casts a dark-skinned, chubby woman as a lead who’s not playing an Indian maid, a comic foil or a saintly mother—you know, a gordita portrayed as an actual person—is the day Arpayaso joins MEChA.

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him onTwitter or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

Dump the Pendejo Already

[¡Ask a Mexican!] Is keeping photos of exes a gabacho thing?

By GUSTAVO ARELLANO Thursday, Jul 15 2010

DEAR MEXICAN: Most Mexicans I know (myself included) feel it’s terribly disrespectful to keep old photos around of you and your ex and vice versa. I’d never keep pictures of me and an ex around to try to push my new/current boyfriend’s buttons; I guess I feel it’s a slap in the face. So, when a couple of old photos of my boyfriend and his exes flashed on his screen saver (they were hugging and kissing), I didn’t flip out. Instead, I asked him about them and told him they kind of make me feel a bit uncomfortable.

Please keep in mind I’ve never been accused of being the jealous type or an insecure mujer. I have a career and life of my own (i.e., I’m not always up his a-s). He is white and I explained to him the best I could, saying I guess the Mexicans I know just don’t do those things. I knew walking into this “white world” that most whites have exes on Facebook as friends—hell, some even hang out with them. From my experience as a Mexicana, that’s a big no-no. I didn’t say to him it was a deal-breaker of any sort, so I’m sure I will deal with it—like I said, I knew dating a white guy that there would be times like these, and I accept it. I guess I was just wondering if I was being insecure? Or is there a cultural difference here?

Dolores Dice

DEAR WABETTE: To paraphrase the Mexican’s mariposa counterpart, Dan Savage: Dump the Pendejo Already (DTPA). It’s one thing for a current partner to keep talking with exes, quite another to keep photos of said exes in a place where they see them daily, and quite pendejo to have said pictures of exes hugging and kissing said partner and to show them to their current beau. Sure, Mexicans are a bit more skeptical of maintaining a relationship with an ex-partner than gabachos, and that’s because of a Catholic worldview deeming any previous partner as whorish and unworthy of further thought (unless in the safe zone of being borracho), but your man should’ve shoved those photos into his digital trash bin the minute he committed to you. That he hasn’t says more about him than you, Dolores—so please, DTPA.

DEAR MEXICAN: Know Nothing Mexican-haters frequently misquote a report about the California prison population in 2006 by stating that 38 percent of the incarcerated males in Califas are illegal-alien Mexicans. They state that “Mexicans,” whom they see as all being illegal, should be deported. There is one fact that the racist pendejos, who are in denial about their sexual preferences, do not mention: 39 percent of the female population in California prisons in 2006 is WHITE! In order to facilitate the Reconquista and reduce crime, do you think white females should be deported to Europe?

El Habrano

DEAR WAB: No, we need gabachas to restart our mestizaje after the coming Aztlán-American War . . . Wait, is this thing on? What I meant to say is that original stat you cited—the 38 percent one—isn’t too far off. That is the percentage of Latinos incarcerated in California carceles. But that number covers all imprisoned Latinos, legal and not. As we are well-aware, Know Nothings ignore such inconvenient facts in favor of the “findings” of hack think tanks such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Center for Immigration Studies, “findings” that our lamestream media usually repeat without question, thus confirming the suspicions of Know Nothings, who repeat them and point to both said hack tanks and the media as their citations when arguing. Like that oft-repeated lie that immigrants are more prone to crime than citizens? Debunked by almost every legitimate researcher (including this one—buy my book!), yet you’ll never see such reality enter their discourse. I appreciate your sarcasm, but just one quibble, Habrano: What does sexual preference have to do with anything? Hate the haters, but no need to use our mariposa brothers and sisters as slurs against Know Nothings—otherwise, we’re no better than they are.

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him onTwitter or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

More Mormon Mexicans?!?

[¡Ask a Mexican!] Also, why do the people of Jalisco look down on other Mexicans?

By GUSTAVO ARELLANO Thursday, Jul 22 2010

DEAR MEXICAN:I heard Mormonism is a quickly spreading religion down in ye olde Mexico. What is it about this religion that a lot of Mexicans find so fascinating?

Jack Mormón

DEAR GABACHO: Historically? Mexico has long had the second-largest community of Mormons in the world after the United States—official LDS figures estimate 1.2 million members live in Mexico, a significant increase from the 783,000 estimated in 1999. This community has existed for almost 135 years, created after polygamous Mormons who wanted to keep their multiple wives moved down south because, hey, anything goes down Mexico way, right? Sociologically? Mormons are masters of proselytizing—the increase in numbers “shows that a church group can produce a short-term phenomenal growth rate by committing resources to missionary activity,” according to Professor James W. Dow in his 2003 scholarly paper “The Growth of Protestant Religions In Mexico and Central America.” Theologically? My understanding of Mormonism is that it places an emphasis on the family, encourages couples to have as many children as possible, stresses the dominion of the husband over the family and hates homosexuals. If those attributes aren’t appealing to Mexicans, then I’m Moroni himself.

DEAR MEXICAN:Why do Mexicans from Jalisco look down on Mexicans from other parts of the country?

El Gallo Negro

DEAR BLACK ROOSTER: Because tapatiós are the Texans of Mexico—an arrogant, brilliant, overly patriotic group whom government officials romanticize as the id of the national psyche and whose societal characteristics and traditions became easily identifiable stereotypes to the rest of the world. Déjame give you an example: You know how a lot of gabachos assume all Mexicans wear massive sombreros, love the tequila, play mariachi and have the potential to grow mustaches as thick as the Amazon rainforest? That’s because all those stereotypes originated from Jalisco, the birthplace of mariachi and tequila, where the native sombrero is huge and brimmed and most of the men can grow big bigotes because of the Spanish blood inside them. Starting in the 1930s, Mexican officials specifically picked Jalisco to immortalize in films and other cultural exports so that the rest of the world assumed all Mexicans were just the same. “Needing a people who could personify hispanismo,” wrote Joanne Hirschfield in “Race and Class in the Classical Cinema,” an essay in the anthology Mexico’s Cinema: A Century of Film and Filmmakers, “its proponents found them in . . . Jalisco. The mythology of [Jalisco] created a horse-riding people who were devoutly Catholic and capitalistic, had never intermarried with Indians, and played Mariachi music.”

Because of this propaganda effort, people from Jalisco—just like those from Texas—have a notorious superiority complex, but each state or region in Mexico occupies a certain strata in la república that matches up to our own states. People from Zacatecas, for instance, are the Iowans of Mexico: hard-working, humble, and famous for their immigration to other lands. Mexico City is New York City, of course, while Monterrey is more like the Boston of Mexico, although more on the Brahmin side than the racist mick part. Sonora and Sinaloa are an eternal Wild West, literally (as they occupy the western part of Mexico) and figuratively (the narco wars), while Oaxaca and Chiapas are our Guatemala, not just because of its geographical proximity to the country, but because of the large indigenous population. I can go on, but this humble Zacatecan must go back to work exposing Jaliscans as the blowhards they are.

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him onTwitter or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

Which Came First: The Panocha or the Panocha?

[¡Ask a Mexican!] Etymology and sociology-oh, my!

By GUSTAVO ARELLANO Thursday, Jul 29 2010

DEAR MEXICAN: As an old gringo who calls himself a gringo (not a gabacho), I study Mexican culture and ask myself, “Where have I seen this before?” The answer invariably is 1950s America—that’s where. Current Mexican culture in the U.S. is about 50 years behind current American culture. Back in the 1950s, Americans had large families and were overtly racist and sexist (the only jobs a woman could get were secretary or nurse). Macho men kept their women pregnant in the kitchen. There were lots of transient day workers because the Great Society social programs hadn’t been implemented yet. Americans were in love with their Bel Airs and Thunderbirds. Movies were hyper-macho (both A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront came out in the 1950s). Film noir was big. Television had lots of variety shows featuring circus acts and dwarves. Soap operas started to flourish. Polka was big. There were motorcycle gangs and Mafia families. I could go on and on. The parallels are striking, ¿qué no? So, I’m guessing that the future for Mexicans means a “counterculture” forming around 2010 that will drag Mexicans through all the crap Americans just went through during the past 50 years. Scary.

Gringo From the Future in Tucson, Arizona

DEAR GABACHO: Fascinating chrono-analysis, but what you describe are the pathologies most every immigrant group in this country faced in their dumb-ethnics phase, not just the gabacho class. And you also fail to account for the millions of pochos whose ancestors suffered such assimilatory lumps, pochos who are now essentially well-toasted whitebreads, almost indistinguishable from their gabacho neighbors, save surnames and a bunch of illegal cousins. But I do salute you for being one of the few gabachos who remembers the 1950s as the hellhole era it was, instead of viewing it through the Vaseline-smeared lens of an MGM musical like too many Know Nothings.

DEAR MEXICAN: I’ve been reading your articles for a while and have always wondered why you respond using Spanish words and terms for which I can’t find a translation. For example: que no, pendejo, raza cósmica, mariposa, chula, verga, gabachos, negritos, primeramente, migra, etc. Perhaps the translation books I’m using need to be replaced by a more complete dictionary of words. If you have a recommendation, please let me know.

Webster’s Wishing We Weren’t Wimps

DEAR GABACHO: As I frequently menciono in this columna, pa’ educational razones, but siempre in un way that even the biggest Arpayaso can understand y thus aprender some nuevas words. If you insist on a translation book, buy ¡Ask a Mexican!—released in paperback form by Scribner in 2008 and available at your cheaper bargain bins everywhere.

DEAR MEXICAN: What got the panocha name first: the sweet pudding or the sweeter vagina?

Pablo the Pervert

DEAR WAB: Neither. Panocha comes from the Vulgar Latin panucula, which refers to the ears of cereal grain such as corn, millet and wheat. Its literal Spanish definition is just that, and the New Mexican pudding called panocha refers to its sprouted-wheat origins. This panocha contains brown sugar, however, so panocha also became a name for this sweetener. I wish I could say that all these treats were named in homage of Mother Panocha, but I’m afraid the word’s sexual connotation is just another example of Mexican men turning everything into a sexytime opportunity. In our defense, though, other Latinos do the same: Our innocent, delicious concha (the most famous of Mexican pan dulce, the one with all the rivets of sugar covering its crust) means panocha to Cubans, much to my mami’s eternal dismay.

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The Truth Is Like a Mexican

[¡Ask a Mexican!] Facts and stats always win

By GUSTAVO ARELLANO Thursday, Aug 5 2010

DEAR MEXICAN: I am a retired gringa living in Mazatlán, Sinaloa. Most of us foreigners here are liberal and sympathetic to the immigration problem, which the U.S. Congress refuses to address in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, I get lots of e-mails from acquaintances “apprising” me of the horrible situation in el Norte and how all their tax dollars are being spent to educate and provide medical and Social Security benefits (yes! They say that!) to these “criminals.” I used to laboriously write letters and cite statistics and all that. IT DOESN’T DO ANY GOOD. Now, I ignore the messages but feel guilty about not trying to correct the bullsh-t. Can you give me a good short response to those e-mails? Something in Spanish telling them they are stupid would be nice, but some of them are actually friends! I will be forever grateful.

Gringa Near the Agua

DEAR GABACHA CERCA DE LA WATER: No, you should always respond with facts and stats, preferably disseminated by your humble Mexican scribe. Here’s a new one: Did you know that fully 100 percent of supporters of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer are fools? It’s the truest stat since someone determined that the sun rises and sets every day in the world’s non-polar regions. In reality, por favor, never stop spreading the truth. The truth is like a Mexican: It can be ignored, spat upon, ridiculed, even deported, but it wins out. It perseveres. And the truth (and a Mexican) eventually multiplies to the point where it overwhelms anything before it. Name-calling and insults are muy fun but pointless unless you come armed with those facts and stats—that has been this column’s mantra since día one. Please do continue to provide stats to your so-called amigos. As for the good, short response to end each letter: ¡A LA CHINGADA CON ARPAYASO Y BREWJA!

DEAR MEXICAN: I’m an old-school veterano wondering why twenty- and thirty-something Hispanic professionals are so afraid of the Chicano Movement. Is it because of those mean-looking Brown Berets? The female Brown Berets wore miniskirts and go-go boots, but, I admit, even they looked angry. Or is it because of those Chicano and Chicana high-school students who busted out of school to protest racism when they should have been going to their private SAT prep classes (oh, wait, we couldn’t afford those)? Or is it because some Movement leaders such as Reies Tijerina spoke Spanish really fast? I know there are no more problems for young raza with the educational system and foreign wars, but maybe ya’ll should cut the poor old movimiento some slack.

En Pie de Lucha (With My Cane)

DEAR IN STRUGGLE (CON MI BASTÓN): Same reason those same professionals criticize undocumented college students for staging protests outside the offices of Democratic Party bigwigs who don’t push enough for the DREAM Act, or why trade unions join forces with captains of industry today, alliances that would’ve wobbled the senses of their predecessors. It’s the same reason why the descendants of wops (like Arpayaso), micks, Polacks and Krauts agitate for Know Nothing policies today. It’s the American way, profe: When people get their slice of the pastel, they forget the radicalism and activism that created the path that allows them to exist and be successful pendejos. But I do have to admit that in the case of hard-line Chicanos, many of our more-assimilated, less-radical hermanos y hermanas also don’t like y’all because of your nasty puritanical streak. Can’t tell you how many letters I get from otherwise-down people whom yaktivists ridicule because their skin is too light, their Spanish too pocho, or because they can’t recite the poetry of Nezahuacoyotl upon request. Onward with la causa, but let’s leave ideological tests solely to politics and not to how mexicano one is, ¿sale?

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him onTwitter or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

Special Comida Edition

[¡Ask a Mexican!] Where to get Mexican food in NY and how Mexis take their coffee

By GUSTAVO ARELLANO Thursday, Aug 12 2010

DEAR MEXICAN: As a proud New Yorker, I gotta ask: What the F-CK is up with Mexican food in this city? Sure, we’re used to getting owned by California and Texas and even Chicago when it comes to getting cheap, regional Mexican food. But I just got back from Philadelphia, where I was able to score some mighty-fine tortas and DF-style tacos that seriously kicked the a-s of anything I’ve ever had in Manhattan. Philly, for f-ck’s sake! To put that in perspective for you Californians, Philly is the Guatemala of the East Coast!

How can it be that in a city where just about every commercial kitchen in every imaginable cuisine is powered by some seriously world-class Mexican talent, we can’t get decent, affordable Mexican food without having to go to Queens or Brooklyn or the Bronx? Sure, we’ve got Rosa Mexicano and Mercadito and the like—but I can’t afford to spend a month’s rent on one meal. All I want is a nice taqueria that I don’t have to traverse a bridge or a tunnel to get to. This isn’t Arizona! Everyone’s a damn immigrant here! So why are we being punished like this?

Deprived

DEAR GABACHO: Are you a proud New Yorker—or a proud Manhattanite? Because you answered your question in your pregunta. The Big Manzana historically didn’t have great Mexican food—although it did play a crucial role in the development of Mexican food in the United States, but you’ll have to wait until next year for the details, which will be found in my book Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America (And Soon, the World)—because Mexicans didn’t migrate to the region in large numbers. That has changed in the past 20 years, with the 2000 Census showing that Mexicans were New York’s fastest-growing ethnic group—and that was before the Reconquista truly wrapped its mestizo hands around Gotham! You have some of the highest concentrations of people from Puebla and Hidalgo in the United States, so feast on barbacoa and cemitas poblanas (sandwiches that make hoagies seem as puny as a singular pierogi) to your panza’s content—and leave the whining to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.

DEAR MEXICAN: I’m a huge fan of yours, and I decided I would at long last ask the Mexican a question! I sat down this morning to drink my mocha and realized I had no idea how Mexicans like their coffee. The Europeans have espresso, the Americans have the mud at McDonald’s, but what do the Mexicans have? Help me, amigo!

Caffeine Cabrona

DEAR GABACHA: Mexicans prefer café de olla—coffee from the pot, preferably lead-lined—spiced with cinnamon and piloncillo, unrefined brown sugar usually formed into a cylindrical triangle from which Mexis smash off pieces. Café de olla is like a Mexican woman—spicy, sweet, caliente, perfect for late nights, early mornings and slow, gentle blowing on its top before sipping.

SHAMELESS PLUG! Not for me, for once, but for the most-Mexican gabacho I know who’s not a cousin-in-law: Robb Walsh, the Gibbon of Texas food history. He recently came out with a new book, The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbecue Cookbook, and Walsh being Walsh, it’s no mere grab bag of great, easily reproducible recipes. You also get gorgeous pictures and stories on the different facets of Tex-Mex cuisine. Learn, for instance, about the curious history of the fajita or the advent of the margarita. A great, useful read, and like I say in the blurb I contributed to the back of the book: Anyone who doesn’t buy it deserves deportation. Learn more at robbwalsh.com, and felíz grilling!

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him onTwitter or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

Latter-Day Mexicans

[¡Ask a Mexican!] South of the border Mormons redux
By GUSTAVO ARELLANO Thursday, Aug 19 2010

Dear Readers: As you read this, my trusty burro, pigtailed chica and I are crisscrossing Aztlán researching Mexican food. So now is as bueno as any time to do some housecleaning for the columna. Hay que start with a letter from the Mexican’s longtime amigo, William Lobdell. For years one of the most prestigious religion reporters in the United States, he’s also the author of the touching, brilliant memoir Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America—and Found Unexpected Peace, a book the Mexican recommends as much as he does Herradura. He wrote in recently regarding my piece from a couple of semanas back theorizing as to why so many Mexicans are Mormons:

The real reason why Mormons had such good luck at converting Mexicans is that the missionaries and even past prophets have told Latinos they are the descendants of Lamanites, a lost tribe of Israel that came to America around 600 B.C. As Lamanites, therefore, Mexicans are part of God’s chosen people and very, very special, and God has something incredible planned for them. This, naturally, is very appealing to people of poverty and hardship. Of course, recent studies show that native Americans (North, Central and South) come from Asia, not the Middle East. But this hasn’t stopped the majority of Mormons from using the you-are-a-Hebrew sales pitch to natives of North, Central and South America. And when those converted Mormons find out that they don’t have an ounce of Jewish blood in them, they are devastated.

Gracias, Bill!

On the other side of the Mexican-Mormon equation is the following gentleman:

Your “understanding of Mormonism” is partially incorrect and frankly offensive. Mormon men do NOT dominate their wives. Mormons do NOT hate homosexuals—nor anyone else for that matter. I suggest you do better research and apologize in print for these untruths. Good luck finding the courage to do that.

Actually, señor, Mormons do quite hate homosexuals—otherwise, church doctrine wouldn’t classify the act as a sin or unnatural. But what do I know? My Catholic faith preaches the same pendejadas—and we protect pedophiles much better than ustedes, to boot. As for the husband domination? That’s what makes your religion so appealing to Mexicans—don’t start denying it now!

STOP THE DEPORTATION OF DREAMERS! Faithful readers know that the Mexican’s favorite cause is the DREAM Act, a bill before Congress that would allow young people who are culturally American to qualify for amnesty. The pinche Obama administration is now threatening to deport quite a few of them—my former intern Matías Ramos; Marlen Moren of Tucson, Arizona; and even a gabacho—Ivan Nikolov, a 22-year-old student at Macomb Community College in Michigan who might be back in Russia (a country he barely remembers) by the time you read this. Fight the deportation of some of our best and brightest by visiting dreamactivist.org to learn how to raise the proper desmadre.

CONTEST ALERT! The Mexican doesn’t mind pirated versions of his column, but he doesn’t like it when pendejos use his picture without his permission. See, the awesome artist Mark Dancey owns my pinche portrait, and he enjoys people ripping off his work about as much as Arpayaso enjoys following the law.

So, the contest: Anyone who rats out someone anywhere in the world who uses this column’s logo gets a free copy of my book. Send photographic proof of the piratería (previous examples I’ve seen are pendejos using the logo to sell Mexican food or beer, promote club nights, and adorn a phone card) to my e-mail or snail-mail address (P.O. Box 1433, Anaheim, CA 92815-1433). And for those of ustedes who won last year’s contest—the Mexican mail system screwed up my deliveries of your free book, so they’ll be coming in the next couple of weeks!

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him onTwitter or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

It Ain't Easy Being Mexi

[¡Ask a Mexican!] The chaotic life of Mexicans who hike
By GUSTAVO ARELLANO Thursday, Aug 26 2010

DEAR MEXICAN: Oye, I’m a Mexican con un pie aquí y un pie allá, and I have to admit that it is difficult to be a Mexican these days. I’d like to make the argument that it is one of the worst times ever to be a Mexican. I even think it is worse now than it was in the time of the revolución, worse than Santa Anna and Cortés, worse than the Zoot Suit riots—man, it is worse now than when frickin’ Pete Wilson was California’s governor and Proposition 187 passed. The reasons are these: the conflicts in the border towns of Juarez and Tijuana, the racist law in Arizona, and Minutemen. It’s just crazy. I feel that in the past, we could look fondly at either the United States or Mexico when times were rough on one side of the border. Right now, it just feels like a double-edged sword. Yet the saddest thing about it is that I just don’t see either side of the border letting up any time soon. Dude, ¿Cuando vivaremos en paz?

Condenando Here, and damned Allá

DEAR DAMNED AQUÍ, Y CONDENANDO THERE: When will we live in peace? Never. Chaos is the order of life for Mexicans—how can it not be, given our violent birth, centuries-long infancy and current adolescent angst? But don’t think these are the worst times in the history of raza. Gabachos aren’t lynching us in the same numbers they did after the Mexican-American War; they’re not deporting us en masse like the días de Operation Wetback and the Mexican Repatriation of the 1930s. The hatred for us today is less bloody than in the past—hooray! Down south, the narcos . well, you want your humble columnist to keep his head, don’t you? Really, all Mexicans can do is what we’ve always done: Persevere, get on with life, and throw the f-ckers out with a good old-fashioned uprising. It happened in 1810, 1910—but what about this year, and how about on both sides of la frontera? Let’s show those Tea Baggers what a true revolución is about—but no guns this time! Just the beautiful force of the ballot box.

DEAR MEXICAN: Do you know whether Mexicans are known to hike (besides hiking across the border)? It’s not a joke. I know Mexican friends of mine who hike for the purpose of picnicking in the wilderness at Temescal Canyon or in Mexico (for leisure), but otherwise, are we known to be hikers as a general population?

Hiking Heina

DEAR WABETTE: Chingao, you stole my border joke! The Outdoor Industry Foundation published a 2006 study called “The Hispanic Community and Outdoor Recreation,” which estudió the matter closely. They found that we barely hike and concluded “a concerted effort now must be made to involve Hispanics—a population representing an avenue of high growth for the outdoor industry.” See, the numbers they found were embarrassingly low: A full 50 percent of the wabs surveyed hadn’t hiked even one day in the previous year; 32 percent had hiked between one and four days. And most of those who participated were pochos, so you know the numbers for actual Mexicans were even lower. The study concluded that most Mexis didn’t hike because of a lack of access to equipment, leisure time, outreach by companies—essentially the same excuses given by everyone for poor participation of Mexicans in any gabacho-heavy activity (voting, empire-building, college enrollment, fake uprisings, etc.).

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him onTwitter or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

The Mexican Migra Blues

[¡Ask a Mexican!] Are you a vendido or a Manchurian Mexican?
By GUSTAVO ARELLANO Thursday, Sep 2 2010

DEAR MEXICAN: I’m a naturalized citizen born in Ciudad Juárez (the most dangerous city in the world, thanks to the drug cartels), but I work for la migra. I get a lot of sh-t from some of my family members because they feel I shouldn’t be doing this job. I always tell them that it’s better I got the job rather than some racist gabacho who might otherwise “mistreat” the aliens who come to the country—particularly the ones who like to make menudo on Sundays. I know I wouldn’t mistreat them. Should I quit my job and make my family happy, or keep my job and do it in a humane manner?

Migra Mexican

DEAR GABACHO: I answered your family’s question back in 2008, when someone called you and the 52 percent of wabs who make up the Border Patrol a bunch of hypocrites. My answer then was this: “It’s easy for Mexicans to dismiss these agents as vendidos, but let’s not pretend the United States-Mexico border is a playground on the level of Xochimilco. Lots of bad people inhabit la frontera—drug-runners, coyotes, Guatemalan aliens who invaded Mexico first before setting their beady eyes on the United States—and no one is better than a Mexican at dealing with scum, mostly because we deal with it daily in the form of our government. Besides, don’t bash our Mexican migra—we all know those brown Border Patrol agents are Manchurian Mexicans waiting for Obama to become president so they can open the gates once and for all.” I still stand by that sentiment (although Obama hasn’t complied with his end of our Faustian pacto), but I would ask you to be in the juego, not of the juego. Calling the undocumented “aliens”? You know better than that. By the way, gentle readers: A member of the Mexican’s extended family is migra. And now you know how I snuck into the United States.

DEAR MEXICAN: Why do Mexicans only purchase one piece of wood from the hardware store at a time? Usually, it’s an odd shape, like a 2-by-2 or one piece of trim, too small to even trim a closet.

Home Depot Diva

DEAR GABACHA: Because perfection takes time, chula. Take the Reconquista. . . .

DEAR MEXICAN: As you’re probably well aware, most American conglomerates have set up shop south of the border. Without naming names, how is it that they get away with, in most cases, charging more for the same product, yet pay these employees a fifth of what the same employee makes doing the same job up north? Why doesn’t Mexico say, “Hey, you want to sell products here for the same price or better than you sell it for back home, then pay the same wages you do up there?” If Mexico were to force these companies into this agreement, there would no longer be the draw to narco-trafficking jobs that pay $400 American a week making human soup, ¿qué no? Not to mention the fact that there wouldn’t be eight people in a one-bedroom apartment living illegally in the U.S., making $300 a week and thinking they hit the lottery. Why is Mexico allowing itself to be bullied by its big, next-door neighbor like this?

¡A La Mecha!

DEAR WAB: On one issue and one issue only can Know Nothings and Aztlanistas agree, and that’s the destruction the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other neoliberal policies wrought on Mexico. Before its implementation, Mexico was largely a statist economy, with heavy subsidies and protections for industry and workers. That created a stagnant business environment, however, especially when compared to the free-market fustercluck we run up here, so Mexico’s peso policies didn’t stop its residents from going to el Norte. But once globalists on both sides of the border (as usual, Canada played an inconsequential role) implemented NAFTA on Jan. 1, 1994, the relaxed regulations (coupled with a devaluation of the peso) destroyed Mexico, unleashing the flood of migrants we have today. The problem with those maquiladoras you mention is that they’re merely following the free market—they can pay less in Mexico and charge more for products than in the United States because of our uneven economies, but they can also pull out and relocate to countries with even worse salaries than Mexico and screw everyone further. This is all a long way of answering your question: Mexico’s only possible response is . . . invasion!

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him onTwitter or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!