St. Louis Riverfront Times

Tag: Ask a Mexican

  • Why won’t Mexican men go down on their ladies?

    Why won’t Mexican men go down on their ladies?

    Dear Mexican: A friend says she read somewhere that only 20 percent of Mexican men will go down on their ladies. I don’t believe that. Can you “spread” some light on the subject?
    El Gabacho Guapo


    Dear Handsome Gabacho: Let me penetrate the thrust of your friend’s argument by referring her to the seminal The International Encyclopedia of Sexuality, a set of studies on the world’s sex habits gathered into one grande book. Its Mexico section cites two surveys from the early 1990s that found about 50 percent of men in Mexico City practiced oral sex on women — more than twice the amount that your friend laid out. The Mexican hombre taste for cunnilingus grows once they hop over to the United States: a 2002 report by the National Center for Health Statistics showed that 74 percent of Latino men had performed cunnilingus at one point in their life. But that amount is dwarfed by the 87 percent of gabachos questioned by the NCHS who admitted to doing the deed. The Mexican holds various theories about why his swarthy hermanos aren’t as prone to panocha pecking as gabachos — traditional Mexican men don’t bother with cunnilingus since it doesn’t lead to procreation, Mexican women are too ashamed of their bodies to allow a male tongue to lick their hoo-haa, Mexico’s endemic machismo produces a culture where vagina dentata is as feared as la migra. But forget explanations: The paucity of Mexican men who munch muff is an urgent social ill, and I urge all mujeres to remedy the problem by nabbing a Mexican and faking an orgasm in the name of la raza.

    Dear Mexican: What do you think will happen to the gringos if Mexicans become the biggest raza in America, like a lot of people predict?
    El Mex de Durango


    Dear Wab: That’s the 64,000-peso question. Demographics show that Mexican birth rates grow even as those of gabachos fall. The Jim Gilchrists of this country predict chaos and a goat in every backyard once there are more Mexicans than gabachos; pro-amnesty activists claim Mexicans will assimilate into this country’s fabric just as previous immigrant groups did. I’m among the latter, and propose we’ll be the most American ethnic group yet. Taking historical cues from our gabacho forefathers, Mexicans will ridicule English speakers and dismiss them as lazy minorities with funny-sounding surnames and traditions. We’ll do what gabachos were always too pussy to try — take over Mexico — and create a true NAFTA, bringing further riches to the United States and ending the illegal immigration problem for good. Then we’ll become too complacent and fat, and gabachos will plot the takeover of their ancestral lands by having more babies and agitating for affirmative action and Gabacha/o Studies programs. Moral of the story? Protect your children’s future, gabachos — treat Mexicans well and encourage their simpático ways. Otherwise, they might just become Americans.

    Dear Mexican: President George W. Bush wants Guatemala to have the next two-year term on the U.N. Security Council. Your thoughts on this nomination and what the world can expect should it happen would be appreciated.
    Gabacho in Pittsburgh, PA


    Dear Gabacho: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

    Dear Readers: In my October 12 column, I wrote that the United States “never had the decency to invade Mexico.” Of course, the U.S. has invaded Mexico — during the Mexican-American War and when General John Pershing unsuccessfully pursued Pancho Villa in 1915. What I meant to say was that the United States “never had the decency to occupy Mexico, install a puppet regime, then sit back as the natives slaughtered our boys and each other, while our true enemies bide their time somewhere in the tribal lands of Afghanistan and Pakistan.” My apologies.

    Got a spicy question about Mexicans? Ask the Mexican at [email protected]. And those of you who do submit questions: include a hilarious pseudonym, por favor, or we’ll make one up for you!



  • Why do Mexicans hang CDs from their rear-view mirrors?

    Why do Mexicans hang CDs from their rear-view mirrors?

    Dear Mexican: What’s with Mexican-Americans who live in New Mexico claiming they’re Spanish and not Mexican? Many actually get angry and combative if you ask them if they’re Mexican. But if you look at them, they look more Indian than Spanish! Why have so many developed a deep-seated embarrassment of who they are? Why are many so ashamed of their heritage?

    Albuquerque Amigo


    Dear Mexican: Why are Mexicans in California proud of their Mexican roots but in New Mexico they’re ashamed?

    Hispano Hottie


    Dear Mexican: Why do people in New Mexico (many of them my relatives) believe that they’re Spanish and deny that the area used to belong to Mexico?

    Bill Richardson for Presidente


    Dear Readers: Ever since the Mexican first appeared in Albuquerque’s Weekly Alibi, readers of that muy bueno paper continue to swamp my mailbox with this question; it now ranks behind only “Why do Mexicans swim with their clothes on?” as the most-asked pregunta in “¡Ask a Mexican!” history. The easy response is that New Mexicans are simply smarter than other wabs, because no one in their right mind should ever claim Mexican heritage. Besides, Mexico’s claim to New Mexico — to the entire southwest United States, for that matter — is as tenuous as the peso’s value. Mexico ruled the Land of Enchantment from 1812 until 1848, a chronological fart between the much-longer reigns of the Spaniards (212 years), gabachos (158 years) and the Native Americans (eternal). Mexico’s lazy mestizos never made much effort to populate New Mexico, so many longtime New Mexicans can honestly claim a Mexican-free background. But those so-called Hispanos are delusional: Even if a Hispano can proclaim his family clean of Mexicans, many Hispanos intermingled with gabachos or Indians (consult Ramón A. Guttiérez’s controversial 1991 study When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846). And even if a Hispano has no Mesoamerican blood whatsoever, his Spanish ancestors were the mutts of Iberia — Jews, Arabs, bastard sons and other miscreants who fled the Inquisition for the northernmost border of New Spain. The Hispanic experience in America, whether you’re Mexican, Hispano or even Guatemalan, is one of impurity, so Hispanos should stop with their Spanish superiority complex — they’re no better than Mexicans.

    Dear Mexican: Why do Mexicans hang CDs from their car’s rear-view mirrors?

    Poor Use of That Album


    Dear PUTO: Any number of reasons. Mexicans love religious tchotchkes — seven separate religious icons guard my car, from a rosary to a St. Jude prayer card to a statue of the Santo Niño de Atocha (venerated in New Mexico and Zacatecas) — so the CD you see dangling might just be a Virgin of Guadalupe mini-hubcap. Mexicans also like pretty, shiny things — dig all the gold jewelry we hang from our earlobes and necks, our spinning rims and Three Flowers-brilliantined hair. Or Mexicans might hang CDs in an effort to stymie radar guns, a long-disproved urban legend that only proves Mexicans don’t see the Discover Channel show Mythbusters, which devoted a 2004 episode to debunking that popular belief. But to paraphrase Freud, sometimes a CD is just a CD. Maybe the offending Mexican wants the world to know about his favorite album but can’t fit a sticker on the car because all those pinche bull decals, Calvin-pissing-on-something logos, Mexican flags and “¡Viva México, Cabrones!” license-plate holders get in the way.

    Got a spicy question about Mexicans? Ask the Mexican at [email protected]. And those of you who do submit questions: Include a hilarious pseudonym, por favor, or we’ll make one up for you!



  • The Mexican answers his spiciest question yet.

    The Mexican answers his spiciest question yet.

    Dear Mexican: I’m a 60-year-old Chicano and proud. Why do young Chicanos keep imitating blacks? They dress like blacks, talk like blacks, listen to black music and hang with blacks. Aren’t they proud of their own culture? Why don’t they embrace Hispanic ways and learn about Hispanic history?

    Say It Loud! I’m Brown and I’m Proud!

     

    Dear Wab: Your letter is remarkable, porque it simultaneously refutes and validates the fears of gabachos who say Mexicans aren’t assimilating into this grand land. As you correctly point out, many Mexican kids in los Estados Unidos embrace African-American culture. No big mystery there — black culture is American youth culture, and even the wabbiest chamaco wants to keep up with his American-born peers. But then there are older pendejos like you who retain Mexico’s deep-rooted hatred of Afro-anything and inculcate their children with it. The result is racial animosity — riots at high schools and prisons, gangsters who bump Tupac while bumping off black teens, or mensos like you who find no irony in appropriating James Brown’s black-power anthem for a pseudonym. Many Mexican kids do embrace their mother culture, and that’s the problem: instead of seeing blacks and Mexicans as oppressed hermanos, the younger generation of Mexicans simply follows parental cues and bash blacks. Hey, youngsters: Love this country — love negritos. By the way, Say It Loud, stop using such antiquated terms as “Chicano” and “Hispanic.” They’re as relevant to the contemporary Mexican-American experience as a daguerreotype.

    Dear Mexican: I had never seen an uncircumcised penis before I saw one on a Mexican guy. I asked why he wasn’t circumcised, and he said it just isn’t done in Mexico. Oh, my God, the sex is so much better! Since being with this man, I’ve come to see the idiocy of circumcision in general. Why do Mexicans understand that cutting off part of a baby boy’s penis is crazy when our much more “civilized” American society thinks it is the best thing?

    White Girl in Love with Mexican Cock

     

    Dear Gabacha: Mexicans didn’t always leave their newborn boy’s pito intact. The 1968 book Medicine in Mexico — from Aztec Herbs to Betatrons says Mexico’s indigenous peoples practiced circumcision until the Spaniards arrived, at which point the uncut conquistadors “swiftly stamped out circumcision” in the Americas. “They themselves did not practice it,” author Gordon Schendel wrote, “and the Catholic clergy then condemned any attention paid to genitalia as a barbaric and sinful obsession with sex. As a consequence, circumcision is not the custom today in Mexico, or in other Latin American countries.” Mexico doesn’t keep numbers on the number of wang-whackings performed each year, but the United States does: In the 1997 article “Circumcision in the United States: Prevalence, Prophylactic Effects and Sexual Practice” Journal of the American Medical Association authors Edward O. Laumann, Christopher M. Masi and Ezra W. Zuckerman concluded that only 54 percent of Latinos in the United States sported a sheared schlong, as opposed to 81 percent of gabachos and 65 percent of negritos. So your Latin lover was partly correct: Mexicans do lop off their love snakes, but not as frequently as gabachos. But chula, your great sex with that uncircumcised Mexican owes less to the penis than to the Mexican attached to it.

    ¡ASK A MEXICAN! CONTEST! The Mexican is looking for pictures of the most stereotypical Mexican restaurant logos in the country to include in his upcoming book. If you’d like to see your picture in the libro, e-mail me below. The five best pictures will be included, and the winners will receive a free autographed copy of the book along with a lawn mowing of up to 200 square feet.

    Got a spicy question about Mexicans? Ask the Mexican at [email protected]. Those of you who do submit questions: they will be edited for clarity, cabrones. And include a hilarious pseudonym, por favor, or we’ll make one up for you!

     

     

  • Turn Down the Damn Trumpets!

    Turn Down the Damn Trumpets!

    Dear Mexican: I have no problem with immigrants. My grandparents were Dutch on one side and Irish on the other — but they came here legally, through Ellis Island. What I can’t stand are a bunch of fence-hopping, river-wading illegals telling me I owe them a free education, free healthcare, free transportation, and then making me speak Spanish at every restaurant, car wash and public school in the county. Making these people citizens simply because they’re here is like letting someone keep my car just because he already stole it.

    Angry Gabacho Goes Really Off


    Dear AGGRO: Breathe. Relax. Wake up and smell the tacos. Your letter contains enough inaccuracies, misrepresentations and logical fallacies to qualify as a quiz for high school rhetoric students. Primeramente, you begin by saying that immigrants don’t bother you, then switch courses by bashing illegal immigrants. It’s fine to distinguish between the two, but don’t offer qualifiers when arguing a point — they weaken your conclusion. Also, illegal immigrants aren’t demanding free anything — just amnesty for millions. But even if your assertion were true, you’re forgetting the libertarian concept of TINSTAAFL (an acronym for “There is no such thing as a free lunch” popularized by Nobel Prize laureate Milton Friedman). Taxpayers foot the costs of “free” social services, and Mexicans want to join those ranks; hence, it doesn’t follow that Mexicans seeking everything for gratis would rally for something that requires paying more for the right to live in this great land. Also, you didn’t specify which state you live in, but no Mexican “makes” anyone speak Spanish. Ever heard of free will? If you’re speaking bad español to get by, that’s your choice, chulo. Finally, your stolen-car analogy commits an informal fallacy — it doesn’t follow that a topic as complex as illegal immigration (driven by numerous economic, social and governmental factors) is the same as jacking a ranfla, which only involves a nominal knowledge of hot-wiring. Most important, AGGRO: Where’s my pinche question? Warning to all future submitters: Ask, don’t rant, lest I reward you with the logical smackdown.

    Dear Mexican: Just needed to know the reasoning behind the BLARING MARIACHI MUSIC AT 7 A.M. ON A SATURDAY MORNING. I am of Spanish descent (my father is Puerto Rican), and I wasn’t raised around such BLASTING ACCORDION MUSIC when growing up. Just to add to this, my father also was a professional musician and played Latino music. So, what is it with the Mexi-tunes? Are they trying to wake up, or wake others up?

    Boricua Baboso


    Dear Mexican: Why are Mexicans so damn rude and inconsiderate when it comes to blasting that horrible, bass-pounding circus music when at home or in their unlicensed, uninsured cars? They pound that crap at all hours, not caring who they disturb.

    Can’t Hear Myself Think


    Dear Boricua and Gabacho: Ustedes answered your questions without even knowing it. Boricua Baboso: The blaring in mariachi comes from trumpets, and have you ever heard one? The noise it makes ain’t exactly rustling leaves. Accordions used in conjunto norteño are similarly loud and high-pitched — even at its softest, a squeezebox screams with all the subtlety of a siren (apologies for the alliteration). Can’t Hear Myself Think: Although you didn’t specify what kind of Mexican music qualifies as “circus,” your reference to a heavy bass probably means you hate banda sinaloense, the brass band genre native to Sinaloa anchored by eardrum-exploding tubas. You can play these genres at the lowest possible levels, and their natural reverberations would still shudder through walls, cars and steel. Mexicans are used to the loudness, but not gabachos — with that knowledge in mind, every Banda El Recodo or Los Tigres del Norte track cranked up to Level 11 is payback for your white noise of talk-radio pendejos. And Lou Dobbs — can’t forget Lou Dobbs.

    SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION ALERT! Buy my book!

    Got a spicy question about Mexicans? Ask the Mexican at [email protected]. Those of you who do submit questions: they will be edited for clarity, cabrones. And include a hilarious pseudonym, por favor, or we’ll make one up for you!



  • Ask a Mexican! And why do Mexican men get jealous when Mexican women date hombres of other races?

    Ask a Mexican! And why do Mexican men get jealous when Mexican women date hombres of other races?

    Dear Mexican: I see lots of Mexican-Americans struggling in grade school and high school. Many Mexican-American activists claim it’s because they don’t speak English at home or the schools don’t teach them well. But I see lots of Asian-Americans in the same schools who do really well. Many of them also don’t speak English at home. The last time I went to a hospital, it seemed like Asians were 30% of all the doctors. I didn’t see a single Latino one. Why is it that one group consistently does better than the other? I don’t understand.
    Clueless

    Dear Gabacho: Because Mexican students are stupid, while Asian students are geniuses — that’s what you and your ilk want to hear, right? This pregunta always busts me up, because no matter how many studies activists can offer examining the myths of model minorities and Mexican apathy toward academics — variables, educational background of parents, socioeconomic conditions of neighborhoods, the quality of schools blah, blah, blah — Know Nothings dismiss the facts. That’s not what they want to hear, and they don’t even care about solutions to the education gap. So I’ll just say it again to please ustedes: Mexican students are stupid, Asian students are geniuses. Happy? Of course you are! However, just because you wish something to be verdad doesn’t make it so — and if you don’t believe me, go see what happened to Mitt Romney’s dream of Mexicans self-deporting.

    Dear Mexican: Far too many Mexicans REFUSE going to the trouble of learning English. They often speak Spanish annoyingly loud in public. Sometimes, the KIDS speak better English than their PARENTS! And, if they don’t understand you, they just smile and say, “No, si, no.” What is that crap anyway! How about learning enough of our language to say, “I’m as proudly Mexican as you are American. Screw you, muchacho!” While this would be totally obnoxious, at least it’d be more HONEST than “No, si, no.”
    Willy the White Writer

    Dear Gabacho: Of course the kids speak better English than their parents — the kids are Americans, while the parents are Mexicans. And those Mexicans are muy honest with you — or do you not hear them mutter “Chinga tu madre, pinche gabacho feo apestoso” under their breath?

    Dear Mexican: My boyfriend is Mexican, and I am a gabacha. Whenever my boyfriend sees a Mexican girl with someone of a different race, he gets disgusted and mad (especially when he sees them with black guys.) I’ve pointed out to him that he seems a bit hypocritical, since he’s with a white girl as well — but he says that he makes an exception for me. Do all Mexicans feel this way, or is my boyfriend pinche loco?
    Lover of Verga

    Dear Cock-Loving Gabacha: Of course your guy is pinche loco — but so are all men of color. Hombres complaining that their raza’s women are dickmatized by gabachos while boasting about nailing gabachas is a trope as old as gabachos fearful that oversexed bucks and banditos were taking too many of their women. That said, I’m not going to dismiss the anti-negrito sentiment that still dominates the Mexican mind, especially when said negrito is dating a mexicana. Raza: We gotta drop anti-black thoughts from our community the same way we ditched Carlos Mencia.

    Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano!

  • Ask a Mexican: Why do whites tan if they hate brown people so much?

    Ask a Mexican: Why do whites tan if they hate brown people so much?

    Dear Mexican: If dark-skinned people are so “undesirable,” unwelcome and put down by you gringos, how come you bake in the sun like zopilotes to get dark? Summer is fantasy time for all of you, when you can actually get some color in that white skin of yours. Maybe the whole deal about racists is that they hate being white. I would too! Maybe white angry males are actually latent homosexuals attracted to dark-skinned men! I know for a fact, that white women at one point or another fantasize about a dark man, and that many more actually convert that fantasy into reality with guys like me. Who wants to go to bed with a pale guy? I don’t think being brown or black is bad after all. Comments?
    Tall, Handsome, and Dark

    Dear Wab: You won’t hear any arguments from me about this, but since I’m not versed in the gabacho ways, I threw the question to the Mexican’s Mexican, William Nericcio of San Diego State and the scabrous Tex(t)-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the “Mexican” In America. In addition to dissecting the semiotics of Mexican imagery, Profe Nericcio also has insight into the American obsession with image (check out his upcoming Eyegiene: Permutations of Subjectivity in the Televisual Age of Sex and Race). Take it, Nericcio!

    “This is the age-old sexual conundrum that is actually easy to explain — we all covet something ‘strange’ from time to time; or, to use other words, the ‘exotic’ is erotic, the other beckons with an erotic electricity that can be blinding and impossible to overcome. Let’s pause here a second and throw racism and sexuality into the proverbial conceptual blender: racism is an extension of sex when you think about it — the racist’s hate of the visually different other stems from an anxiety (at the level of DNA) for ‘the same.’  The tribal backstory of homo sapiens evolution (whether or not you buy into the frisky intersexual intrigues that just had to be going down with Neanderthals) is a tale of a species that ‘feels safe’ when making the beast with two backs within the tribe, but that benefits in terms of evolution when philandering outside the tribe.  Evolutionary anthropologists call this exogamy — basically the species (or the tribe) thrives when you stop sleeping with your familia, second-cousin lovers be damned! 

    “So enjoy all the love you’re getting and sharing with pale chicas lusting after your swarthy goodness. While you might feel muy guapo with all the attention, know also that these melatonin-challenged mujeres are merely following basic laws of attraction that owe more to Darwin than your own inner-Papi-chulo!”

    Dear Mexican: I read your column some time ago about why Mexicans go swimming in their undershirts. But I think you missed something. All us Mexican guys are terribly un-tanned. Lift up my sleeve, and it looks like someone dipped my arm in the deep fryer, at least after the shirt ends. How do I fix this?
    Prieto but Not That Prieto

    Dear Dark but Not That Dark Wab: You want to be darker? Um, okay, but the Mexican always loves to shock gabacho audiences by rolling up his sleeves to show a natural skin color even lighter than their lace-curtain Irish auntie. Besides, there’s no better way to get into a gabacha’s chonis is by asking them if they want to see your naturally tanned verga…or not.

    ¡ASK A MEXICAN! VIDEOS ARE BACK!: Gentle cabrones: after a years-long hiatus, I’ve relaunched the video version of this columna. Follow my weekly rants on Twitter by clicking the hashtag #askamexican and ask away. Enjoy!

    Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano!

  • Ask a Mexican: Why don’t Mexicans give good handshakes?

    Ask a Mexican: Why don’t Mexicans give good handshakes?

    Dear Mexican: While vacationing in Mexico, a couple of times I have had vendors or waiters address me as chica. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but while relating a conversation with one of these guys to a Mexican friend of mine back in the U.S., he insisted that chica is WAY too familiar, and that these guys were insulting me by addressing me in this way. I was a little surprised to hear that, since I think I’m a very respectful person, and wouldn’t have given anyone a reason to disrespect me. What do you think?  Were they just being friendly, or taking advantage of my ignorance?  Any advice for the next time I get chica-ed?
    La Chica Blanca

    Dear Gabacha: While chica isn’t the most formal of expressions (it translates as “girl” in Spanish), it’s also hardly the most insulting Mexican Spanish term a male stranger usually use to get a woman’s attention. The starting lineup, in devolving order, are doña (ma’am), señora/señorita (missus/miss), mujer (lady), querida (darling), linda, (pretty), chica (girl), chula (honey), mamacita (cutie), pendeja (“dumb” by itself; “bitch” when modified by), bruja (witch), mamona (cocksucker), puta (whore), piruja (slut) and Thalia.

    Dear Mexican: I’m wondering what’s going on with Mexicans and their seeming discomfort when presented with a handshake as a greeting. Most of the brown guys that I have been around seem like they don’t know what’s going on when it’s time to shake hands. They are slow in taking the hand that is offered, and when they finally do raise their hand for the shake, they don’t look you in the eyes. The worst thing about it is their grip — limp wrist and fingertips only. It’s like you have a wet noodle in your hand. Do guys in Mexico not shake hands at all, or do they just do it differently than Americans? Should I stop trying to shake hands with these guys? What’s up?
    Not Shook Up

    Dear Gabacho: Two types of handshakes exist for Mexican hombres — the firm, look-you-in-the-eye one, and the chokala, which is where the men exchange a light handshake, cock their manos upwards and grip each other’s thumbs, do another mini-handshake involving just the fingers, and finally end with a fistbump (sometimes, it’s reduced to just three steps, with the fingers part dropped). The firm handshake is the hallmark of the older generation and chúntaros; the latter is practiced by the younger generations. You do get the occasional aversion of the eyes, but that’s just a vestige from the Spaniards who took anyone looking at them directly in the ojos as a sign of disrespect, but fuck Spanish traditions. But Mexicans, limp wrists? Are you sure you weren’t shaking hands with Puerto Ricans?

    ¡ASK A MEXICAN! VIDEOS ARE BACK!: Gentle cabrones: after a years-long hiatus, I’ve relaunched the video version of this columna. Follow my weekly rants on Twitter by clicking the hashtag #askamexican and ask away. Enjoy!

    Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano!

  • Ask a Mexican: Is “sancho” a euphemism?

    Ask a Mexican: Is “sancho” a euphemism?

    Dear Mexican: I’m a pocha and my husband is a gabacho (by the way, we loved your explanation in your book on why Mexicans and Irish get along so well — it really explained a lot about our marriage). We had the rehearsal dinner for our wedding catered by one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. Two guests from Santa Fe thought our choice of caterer was hysterical because the restaurant is called Sancho’s. They explained to us that in Santa Fe, a sancho is a “back door man.” I had never heard this before. Is sancho a term just in Santa Fe, or among all Mexicans (except for, apparently, me)?
    Don’t Need No Sanchos

    Dear Pocha: Sancho as a euphemism for anal sex? That’s a new one for me — and I know all the pervert sexual euphemisms out there, from the infamous Dirty Sanchez to even the Angry Dragon. I’m more familiar with sancho as Mexican Spanish slang for the other man in a relationship — in other words, the man that a husband or boyfriend knows his mujer is cheating with when said husband or boyfriend isn’t around (the female equivalent is sancha). The palabra comes from a Mexican Spanish farming term for a “male animal raised by a female animal that isn’t its mother,” according to the definition offered by the Real Academia Española (RAE), the world’s much-fabled custodians of Cervantes (they’ve yet, for instance, recognized the term chúntaro to describe country bumpkins). It’s a perfect description of a cheater: after all, the woman is taking care of someone that’s not theirs. The mystery for the Mexican, though, is why sancho — which is also a proper name ala Sancho Panza — took on such a strange meaning. The RAE only says it comes from sanch, which they say is the call used to round up pigs. The Mexican thinks the researcher who wrote that etymology had his sancha underneath his desk when brushing up THAT entry…

    Dear Mexican: I’m a white middle-class guy from a part of the country that very obviously used to be Mexico — and might again someday, if some people there get their way. I don’t think it was any accident that my forebears ended up where they did — I’m proudly told we have a long pattern of being less-white white people. But that does not mean that people in my family do not grow up to wear American Eagle and name their children things like Harper, Logan, and Madison. They are also white in other ways: stuck up! When I moved to Denver, I called my second cousin to hang out. I was very friendly with most of that side and our dads grew up together in New Mexico. Well, we did not hang out because she thought I was calling up to date her.

    Mexican, I am sad. Not sad that my stuck-up cousin won’t hang out with or date me, but that we went from being so interesting to so sterile. I understand white people who wish they were ethnic, but I don’t know that I’m qualified to get a tattoo of the Virgin. Some white people shave half their head and join other white people who want to be more “real” or more “gutter” or something, but I may not join them because most of them are also named Logan and Harper. What can a white guy do to take a stand for decency and hang on to whatever is left?
    White Guy

    Dear Gabacho: Who says you’re not ethnic? Trying to mack on your second cousin is a VERY Mexican thing to do! Mexicans encourages gabachos to be proud of their ethnic heritage, whether you’re a mick, honky, limey, goombah, squarehead, armo, ruski, or whatever chingada slur is used against Croats. That’s different than expressing general “white pride,” a term loaded with supremacist overtones, undertones, and every tone except sense.

    Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano!

  • Ask a Mexican: Why do Mexis hang out in the front yard instead of the back?

    Ask a Mexican: Why do Mexis hang out in the front yard instead of the back?

    Dear Mexican: I am a butt-white Irish guy, happily and stoked to be married to a beautiful Chicana. Her familia is from a gorgeous rancho deep in the corazón of Zacatecas, and I’ve been wanting to experience all of the ranchero lifestyle I keep hearing about from my acquired familia mexicanos (and from those songs at all of the truly awesome parties we attend just about every weekend). HOWEVER, our State Department has warned Americans to NOT travel into Mexico due to the violence by the drug cartels. Tales of decapitated bodies strewn across highways throughout Mexico has aired on just about all of the Spanish-speaking noticias I tune in to (so I can practice my español, and drool over the female newscasters — ¡que caliente!). Additionally, I’ve gotten such a mixed response from my compas of Mexican origin that now I’m as confused as my Irish grandpa was during prohibition! Some of the family and my pocho partners have said that all is great, and stop being a pinche güero panocha, and just go!  However, los otros amigos have told me that I’d be loco to travel into the moreno motherland because my six-foot, two-inches blond blue-eyed ass would stick out more than a pimple on a prom queen as I made my way into the ranch, and I would surely lose my oversized Ted Kennedy-looking head! Ayuda me — I’m so confused! Do I stay or do I go?
    Scared White Boy (With His Cabeza Intact)

    Dear Mick: I recently talked to a pal who just came back from Zacatecas, and you know what he said? He dijo that his hometown is safe now “because los del Chapo killed all the Zetas and now rule everything.” OY VEY! While bigger cities like Tijuana and Mexico City (and even Juarez, to a lesser extent) are generally safe now after the narcoviolence of the Calderón administration, I’d still stay away from the rural regions Mexico, which are experiencing full-fledged rebellion between warring cartels, corrupt cops, the Mexican military and autodefensas (local vigilante groups) who are saying a la chingada with everyone and defending their ranchos on their own terms. Then again, you’re gabacho, and as I’ve said before, ustedes can walk around Mexico with all the impunity of Winfield Scott because the cartels know better than to mess with one, They know if they do, the Obama administration will stop its eternal waltz with various cartels and rain down the drone desmadre.

    Dear Mexican: Why is it that Mexicans prefer to party, barbeque, dance, and drink in their front yards? Friday and Saturday nights, their low-riding buddies machine-pistol them without having to slow down their Honda. Tight-assed pink peeps party too, but in the safety of the back yard.
    Cabana Man

    Dear Mexican: Why do Mexicans do everything in the front yard? From cooking on the grill, to celebrating birthday parties with inflatable playgrounds like at Burger King to hanging their wet clothes over the railings on their front porch? A friend of mine told me the back yard was where Mexicans keep all their chickens, roosters and autos up on blocks, but it isn’t true. At least not here in Texas. Is this just genetic?
    Tony Romo is Lame, but Jerry Jones is Lamer

    Dear Gabachos: The sooner gabachos realize that front yards are just a pathetic remnant of Gilded Age nitwits pretending to live like British lords and start using yardas like Mexicans, the better off this country will be. Since houses in Mexico historically had no lawns or ornamental plants (that’s what the fields were for), Mexicans view front yards as virgin land ripe for the taking. We grow fruit trees and sugarcane; we park cars on it. And, sí: we’ll happily put a Dora the Explorer bounce house in the front. Why? Because the back yard is already too packed with partying Mexicans.

    Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano!

  • Ask a Mexican: Why do successful Mexi men marry white women?

    Ask a Mexican: Why do successful Mexi men marry white women?

    Dear Mexican: Long-time reader, first-time writer about this noble Aztlán. I watched the brown pride marches of the early 1970s and heard the shouts of La Raza and how it was going to be different now that the “Chicano” had arrived. The Mexicans were going to change things for the greater good. I remember when President Ronald Wilson Reagan gave amnesty to some 5 million illegal Mexican immigrants and how this was going to change things once and for all, bringing the Mexicans into American society with welcome arms and citizenship. Nothing was going to hold the Mexicans down now. And here we are: Mexico might not be falling, as you say, but the police, the Army or the citizens seem unable to stop the killing. Predominantly Latino school districts in Santa Ana and Los Angeles are failing, the Latinas are having babies out of wedlock at the rate of Guatemalans and the young Latinos are still tagging and banging. I believe Mexicans re-colonizing not only the Southwest but of most of America is only a matter of time, with brown pride and illegitimate children filling this great country. So what are you going to do with it, Mexican? History does not paint a very bright future for a Latino-controlled America. 
    Reading The Turner Diaries to Prepare

    Dear Gabacho: Sure it does! Rather than me offering you my usual pendejadas, I’ll direct you to the research of ¡Ask a Mexican! pal, University of Southern California professor Jody Agius Vallejo, whose book Barrios to Burbs: The Making of the Mexican-American Middle Class was just released in paperback (with a rambling intro by your favorite Mexican). Her pioneering research shows how, contrary to Know Nothing assertions, Mexicans are following the same assimilation and financial achievement patterns as previous immigrant groups. Can’t argue with facts, yet I’m sure you will, which only shows why your kind deserves your half-brown grandkid destiny.

    Dear Mexican: I have always wondered why high-achieving Mexican-American men tend to date/marry white women. I have noticed that since I was an undergraduate, now working in academia, most of the Chicano professors are married to white women (WHAT AN OXYMORON). Also, it seems that the more power a Mexican-American man has (whether it’s in academia or politics), the more likely he is to marry a white woman. What is this phenomenon about? Are educated Latinas threatening to high-achieving Chicanos? Are we too complex? What gives? I know this is a rather-sensitive matter and no one seems to want to talk. What is your take on the issue?
    A Xicana Scholar in San Antonio

    Dear Wabette: Your assumption is correct. A 2012 Pew Research Center study on intermarriage in los Estados Unidos put it thusly: “For newly married Hispanic men and women, marrying a white person is associated with a college education.” If anything, you smarty-art Chicanas marry gabachos at a HIGHER rate that smarty-art Mexicans: nearly 33 percent of mexicanas who marry a gabacho are college-educated, compared with about 23 percent of scholarly Mex-men who marry white. The Pew people didn’t get into the why of the matter, but I’d argue it’s because of the scandalously low amount of Latinos in college — coeds tend to get with what’s around, you know? All this said, chula, ALL Mexican men want a gabachita at some point in their lives, regardless of class — witness the shout-outs given to the wetbacks who nailed American women in Los Alegres de Teran’s “El Corrido de los Mojados” and “El Mojado Acaudalado” by Los Tigres del Norte (your humble Mexican can boast of a mick and a Yid in his past). Nothing against you fine-ass Xicanas, but dating a white woman is the ultimate status symbol for hombres, not so much for the prestige but so we can get our share of the romance Reconquista.

    Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

  • Ask a Mexican: What does “Viva la Raza” mean?

    Ask a Mexican: What does “Viva la Raza” mean?

    Dear Mexican: I’m curious as to the meaning of the term “Viva la Raza” that I have often heard expressed by my friends and family. I know what it translates to, but I don’t know why we say it. I happen to be what some call a “half-breed,” and therein lies my dilemma. “Viva La Raza” implies that the person who says this saying or their audience is of a certain “race.” My mother’s family is from the state of Georgia and of French, Scottish and English decent, whereas my father’s family hails from New Mexico and has been in the northern part of that great state since 1627; if you count my indio ancestors (that are undoubtedly in my lineage ’cause my grand mother is short and brown), my family has been in the Santa Fe area prior to European settlement in the Americas. This makes me and my fathers people mestizos. In addition, my family may also be Jewish. It has come to light that many of the old Hispanic families of Northern New Mexico are descendants of the “hidden” Sephardim Jews that pretended to be Catholic and moved to the New World in order to escape the Spanish Inquisition. In addition, aren’t most Hispanos (that hail from north of the border) and Mexicans (from south of the border) mestizos, and didn’t most of the Indians get killed by the Spaniards and Anglos? If so, “raza” or “race” seems to be artificial and really doesn’t mean anything. Furthermore, I think this is true the world over with all of the so-called “races.” It seems to me that we are all half-breeds, mestizo, metis, mulattos or what ever you want to call us. It is my understanding that the human race is the only race, and that we all came “out of Africa.”

    With this in mind, shouldn’t we do away with “Viva La Raza” and come up with something new….perhaps “Viva La Herencia!” or “Viva La Gente!”
    NuMexiHillbilly

    Dear Wab: So many questions, so little time! I’ll just concentrate on the viva part, since the rest of your pregunta rumbles along like a Big Jim chile in a gabacho’s panza. No one is going to rally under slogans that translate as “Long live the heritage” or “Up with people” — they’re too fresa. And while I’m with you on the whole chinga tu madre toward racial classifications, “Viva la Raza” will never be dropped, nor should it. It ties anyone who says it back to the Chicano Movement, from where the term originated (the earliest citation I can find was in a 1966 Los Angeles Times article that quoted legendary activist Bert Corona as exclaiming during a fundraising dinner in LA. “Viva la causa, viva la raza, y viva la unidad — “Long live the cause, long live la raza, and long live unity”). The raza part connects the slogan to the idea of la raza cósmica — the Cosmic Race, the idea put forth by Vasconcelos of a day where humanity trumps the antiquated razas of the Enlightenment. The viva part is a direct descendent of the Grito de Dolores, the proclamation issued by Miguel Hidalgo ushering in Mexico’s War of Independence. It might seem strange to have non-Mexis shout “Viva la Raza!” in this egalitarian society, but Mexicans don’t find it racist or exclusionary, because it isn’t — after all, we all have enough female cousins who have married gabachos and bedded enough gabachitas to make us like y’all enough.

    A QUICK NOTE ON MEXICANS BEING THE FATTEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD: Some of ustedes have sent me reports stating that Americans are no longer the fattest people in the world; Mexicans are. My reaction: who says Mexicans don’t assimilate?

    Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

  • Ask a Mexican: Why are Mexicans so damn funny?

    Ask a Mexican: Why are Mexicans so damn funny?

    Dear Mexican: I’m so perplexed by my Mexican neighbor. For one, he already has four girls, and I just saw his wife — and looks like she’s pregnant again! What really bothers me is that I live in an affordable housing unit. The rent is cheap and based on our income. He has a new Ford F150 truck and his wife drives an older model BMW. Well, what bugs the hell out of me is that he digs in the apartment complex trashcans every freakin’ day. I live in a large complex where there are about six trash bins. Every morning, before he takes his girls to school, he digs in all of them for recyclables.

    I wonder if I’m just jealous, because he must make like $300 a week on all the stuff he recycles, but it really bugs me. If he’s so freakin’ poor and digging in the trash for an occupation, why must he still continue to bring more children into the world? The city I live in has a No Scavenging Law. I really want to report him, but I feel guilty. I feel like I should let him keep digging in the trash, since he has a family to feed. Also, I guess I’m nosey too, ’cause I wonder if they work? I don’t think they do, and I wonder if they’re abusing welfare? And I wonder how many freakin’ girls he’s going to have before he gives up his dream on having a son.

    OK, well, I hope you can help me with this issue. Am I evil? Should I care less? Help.
     Pocha Cabrona in Chino

    Dear Pocha: You’re not evil, chula: just pendeja. You — an assimilated Mexican-American — still have to live in affordable housing? So much for breaking the stereotypes of Mexicans as lazy peons. Meanwhile, that wab that bugs you so much is hustling, digging through garbage for a couple of extra bucks — it’s obviously working out good, since he’s living a better life than your floja ass. Who cares if he wants to have more kids? That’s his decision, not yours. Maybe you’d be better off in life if you picked through trash — but I’m sure you think that’s beneath you. Meanwhile, you’re wondering if your Mexican neighbor is on welfare when YOU are on the government queso. My immigrant parents, who always scrimped and saved and bought massive trucks and SUVs because no honorable hombre should ever leave home without one, never took a dime — that is beneath them, since that’s such an American thing to do. If ever there were a case for Mexicans to not allow their children to assimilate, you’d be the poster niña, pendeja.

    Dear Mexican: I got asked to participate in a Internet radio show where I, as an alleged (mostly by me) Mexican comedian, will be asked questions like, “Why are Mexicans so funny?” Since I’m as Mexican as a Del Taco stand, I defer to you for some insight and wisdom that I can share to the show’s four audience members.
    Tommy Milagro

    Dear Wab: Have you talked to our pocho cousins? A veritable Comstock lode of material for ridicule there!

    PREORDER TACO USA! Gentle cabrones: My much-promised Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, will finally hit bookstores April 10, but that doesn’t mean you can’t already order it (yes, grammar snobs: I just used a double-negative, but Mexican Spanish loves double-negatives the way we do cute second cousins). Place your order with your favorite local bookstore, your finer online retailers, your craftier piratas, but place it: my libro editor has already promised to deport me from the publishing industry if we don’t sell enough copies! And stay tuned for book signing info!

    Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!