Ask a Mexican!
by Gustavo Arellano
Dear Mexican: Six generations of my family have been born and raised in Brownsville, Texas. Everyone speaks Spanish most of the time. Right now, almost every Republican in the state is trying to redistrict Texas so that the bumper crop of Mexican-American candidates are kept from coming up. They passed voter-ID laws recently, and you begin to get the idea after a few citizen deportations to Mexico that the Texan Republican Legislature doesn't really like us.
Ron Paul has gotten some trace traction with Puerto Ricans and Florida Hispanics recently. That doesn't fix the fact that all of his homies in Texas who have voted for him every year HATE LOCAL HISPANICS. His rhetoric sounds good sometimes, because it seems so constitutional.
Can you take a quick look at his immigration and border policies and tell me what kind of mess it would make (or not) for a Mexican American to pick Ron Paul?
Valley Vato
Dear Wab: I actually know more than a few Mexicans who are Ron Paul supporters (shout-out to P. Sergio!), because—as I've noted many times before—Mexicans are natural libertarians: They want the government out of their lives, hate the drug war, and love money.
But when it comes to the issue of immigration, Paul is two tacos short of a combo plate. For a man who believes in open commerce, he wants to severely regulate immigration. For someone who believes in people being able to determine their own lives free of governmental diktat, he doesn't support the DREAM Act and wants to repeal birthright citizenship. For someone so right-on about America's imperial wars, he'd have America's military patrol the U.S-Mexico border.
The fact that Ron Paul's immigration policy is basically no different than that of his Republican colleagues—in the face of an otherwise-impressive policy platform—is costing him millions of Mexi votes and is the biggest disappointment a liberty-loving Mexican has faced since the Mexican national soccer team.
Unlike many gabachas living in Tucson, I love living in a bilingual city and am trying to learn to speak better Spanish. Because of this, I am watching a lot of Spanish-language television.
My problem? I am a science-fiction nerd. Although I enjoy the novelas, horror movies and game shows, I haven't found any good science-fiction shows to watch. I see lots of Mexicans at comic book/sci-fi cons/movies, and superhero and Star Wars cosplay seems popular with the kids, so the genre must have enough fans to support some programs. Where can I look for Spanish shows with spaceships and lots of pew-pew-pew?
Where No Gabacha Has Gone Before
Dear Gabacha: Gracias for reminding people outside of Southern Arizona that normal gabachos live in Tucson, and the city's isn't just spree-killers and Know Nothings who ban Mexican-American studies and books by Sherman Alexie from schoolchildren, lest Mexi kids learn and shit.
As for your query: I take it you haven't mined the canon of Santo, the legendary silver-masked wrestler. He fought diabolical brains, evil brains and plain-ol' invading Martians when not fending off vampire women and other horror tropes. There was a chingón 2008 indie movie, Sleep Dealer, that was like Blade Runner meets Born in East L.A., and UCLA had a film retrospective of Mexican sci-fi from the 1950s a couple of years ago.
But the greatest example of Mexican sci-fi, as you noted, is the Star Wars galaxy—I'll mention the examples of Chuy Baca and Arturito, and leave ustedes to divine the rest!
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