Dear Readers: In between your fifteenth tamale and sixth spiked cup of ponche, you’re going to have to buy regalos for Christmas or whatever pinche holiday you celebrate. Okay, you don’t have to, but you should, to support all those great indie businesses suffering during this Great Recession. Behold, then,…
Dear Mexican: This is the second rant I’ve felt I had to send to you. I don’t know if readers are allowed “seconds,” but here it goes. Much has been said about the terrible things happening to the United States and its citizens by the Mexican drug cartels. But what’s…
Dear Mexican: I read in your book that Mexico is due for a revolution about every hundred years or so. The last one was in the first part of the twentieth century, and you said they are about ready for another one. Do you think the drug war presently being…
Dear Mexican: Having been called a “gabacho” by “Mexicans” much lighter than I and “wetback” by those whose parents (or who themselves) crossed several rivers as they migrated to California, I’m curious as to which group you believe I should hold in the greatest disdain. While Anglo wetbacks are much…
Dear Mexican: GOP senator Mel Martinez authored a decent compromise bill to resolve the growing illegal-immigration problem in the United States. He broke up the group of eleven million illegals into three classes, depending on the amount of time that they were in the country. Those in the United States…
Dear Mexican: Why is Mexico such a dump? Just to name a few of the problems: stray dogs running all over the place, piles of trash burning in the street, blown-out tires hanging from cactus by the side of the road, shredded plastic shopping bags plastering every fence in sight,…
Dear Mexican: I am an Anglo intruder in New Mexico. When I moved to Albuquerque from Virginia, I fell in love with Mexican culture. I was impressed at what I called “Southwestern hospitality.” I have had so many second dinners when I go to people’s homes that I gained a…
Dear Mexican: These days, using the word “nigger” is considered so offensive that, in its place, we now use the term “N-word.” Of course, never mind that African-Americans use it among themselves as a term of endearment, pero esa es una historia para otro dia. Sin embargo, it raises a…
Dear Mexican: There’s something I’m concerned about, or bothered by. I was born and raised in Mexico, but I’ve been here for eight years. All the talk about 9/11 is too much, because every single year brings a rehash of the tragedy. I really think that remembering the event for…
Dear Mexican: Really? You answered “When Should You Use Usted Instead of Tú?” recently over my “Why Won’t My Gardener Fuck Me Again If I Demand an HIV Test?” Any sad gabacho can Google for grammar tips (no offense to Yo Quiero Hablar). Meanwhile, we clueless gabachas need to know how…
Dear Readers: The Mexican doesn’t want to take this week off, but has to because it’s his mother periódico’s Best Of issue, and the Mexican is tasked with eating a thousand tacos in the search for the best one in Orange County. I’ll return next week, more panzón than ever…
Dear Mexican: I learned Spanish in school as a teen. Then, it seems, because I was young, everybody was an usted. I would like to practice speaking it, but am now an adult and don’t know who gets to be a tú. I’m scared of getting it wrong and unwittingly…
Dear Mexican: I hear that at the last Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors hearing about redistricting, some lady accused Supervisor Gloria Molina of Reconquista. What is that — and what on earth is going on over there? I don’t get what all the fuss is about. The U.S. Census…
Dear Mexican: I am a half-breed, as they say (Mexican father, Anglo mother), and recently I’ve been reading a lot about the drug violence in Mexico. I’ve become increasingly disturbed by the way in which we Americans are directly contributing to this war by supplying the demand for drugs while…
Dear Mexican: I live in upstate New York (that’s any part of the state north of the city, for you West Coasters), and while we have a relatively small Mexican population, we have a large number of Puerto Ricans, especially in the community where I live. A number of times,…
Dear Mexican: I’m a young white dude who drives to work every day, and on my daily commute, I get off the freeway and drive through the streets. Every single day between the hours of 5 a.m. and 12 p.m., there are AT LEAST one hundred Mexican men out there…
Dear Mexican: I see a lot of vatos around wearing the clamdigger pants with the knee-high white socks and white sneakers. While this is nothing new, I’ve noticed recently that the shoes and socks are the whitest white I’ve ever seen. If I wear white sneakers and socks, they get…
Dear Mexican: This is going to sound absolutely and totally Caucasian. Lately we have been trying to lighten the mood around the office with delicate bits of international confections. With all that’s going on in the world, who needs one more worry? With that said, though, we are struck with…
Dear Readers: Your faithful Mexican is busy putting the final touches on his coming magnum opus, Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America (out April 2012) and is thus at the rancho, getting handmade tortillas made by his chica in pigtails while he works on rewrites. But instead of a…
Dear Mexican: Here is my problem: I was raised in a typical gabacho family. My siblings and I all enjoyed a typical gabacho relationship. We are close as cats. I phoned my brother year before last, and was gratified to learn that he was still alive. That call went so…
Dear Mexican: A few years back, when I was in high school, my social studies teacher and the leader of our high school M.E.Ch.A. club had deep resentment toward the Spaniards/conquistadors who killed hundreds — probably thousands — of Aztecs. He went so far as to deny that his own…
Dear Mexican: A few years ago, my girlfriend and I visited the beautiful city of Merida in the Yucatán. We were surprised to see a sentence in our guidebook warning us to be on the lookout for Mennonites peddling queso in the mercado. Sure enough, we bumped into a bearded,…
