Dear Mexican: Recently, I visited a viejecita in an assisted living home. As I'm getting on in years myself, I wondered how I would fare in such a place. Fortunately I like to eat cottage cheese, but I would like some salsa with it, or better yet, an occasional jalapeño en escabeche. Are there places for those of us who like spicy Mexican food? Perhaps you have answered this question already in Taco USA, but I have been so busy lately that I have not yet cracked the cover of my copy.
Sabor Para Mi
Dear Flavor for Me: Time was when the Mexican could boast that we raza would never join cruel gabachos in exiling our aging parents to senior homes — that we let them live by themselves because mami y papi were tuf enough, or at the most housed them in their golden años in the casas of our youngest sibling because that's what mija was born to do. But Mexicans tend to embrace the gabacho proclivity to abandon the familia the longer we're in the U.S. "Growth Of Racial And Ethnic Minorities In US Nursing Homes Driven By Demographics And Possible Disparities In Options," published in the July 2011 issue of Health Affairs, showed that the number of Latinos in nursing homes grew by 54.9 percent between 1999 and 2008, while the number of gabachos decreased by 10.2 percent. While the researchers blamed poverty and a lack of access to better medical options for the increased rates, maybe all those old gringos are moving out because they don't want to spend their last days living with Mexicans? Anyhoo, the way those nursing home rates are going, Sabor Para Mi, I don't think you have to worry about the lack Mexican food at your retirement home, but rather cottage cheese — what Mexican likes that cochinada?
Dear Mexican: Why is it that when black families are shown in commercials on TV they are usually — scratch that — always portrayed living in nice neighborhood, living in nice houses and even though they seem to just be chilling at home, they're all hanging out dressed to the nines. Not to mention the youngest member of the family usually talks like he just graduated from Harvard! Meanwhile, when a Mexican family is portrayed on television, the only thing that's missing is the cockroaches crawling down the kitchen walls in the background? And why and where is the so-called Mexican American Defense League or some other kind of worthless raza representation arguing this point? Are they afraid their corporate media masters might call them out as INTOLERANT or HATERS or any other tag that might threaten their important JALES and big fat City Hall payChecks??? Growing up in Los Angeles, I was always taught that the raza was brave and strong and fighters when it came time to get down. But unfortunately, that seems to be nothing but a fairy tale because for the most part, all I've ever seen in my people is a bunch of meek, subservient pushovers. We seem to be more preoccupied these days about how "Black Lives Matter" than our own social political situation.
Shame on Us
Dear Wab: It's one thing to be rightfully concerned about the horrible representation of Mexicans on television (a good antidote? The wonderful Cristela on ABC), but to whine that blacks are getting too much positive love? After more than a century of being depicted as toms, coons, mulattoes, mammies and bucks? The Republican Party called — they want their token racist Mexican back. OBLIGE THEM...
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