Dear Readers: Since the Mexican’s sister is getting married to a
good man from Zacatecas this weekend, I must ignore my research to
slaughter a pig and hire a banda sinaloense. So indulge
yourselves in some piratería questions I ripped off from
my book, and await my return next semana!

Dear Mexican: Isn’t brown pride a P.C. adoption and morphing of
white power?

Serapes Scare Me

Dear Gabacho: True, Serapes. And that’s why events like Hispanic
Heritage Month are lame responses to centuries of gabacho oppression and exclusion. Hispanic Heritage Month is useful only to see
how hilariously clueless gabacho administrators and newspaper
editors—hell, the entire American power structure—still are
about Mexicans. Bake some pan dulce; throw in a salsa band; invite the
Mexican as a keynote speaker (note to said power structure: e-mail
me!); and that’s culture, right? Or run weepy profiles of Mexicans
rising from nothing to barely something, as daily papers do during
Hispanic Heritage Month, and that pleases those pesky Latinos who
clamor for positive, accurate coverage in the press,
¿qué no?

What’s worse is the litany of accomplishments recounted during
Hispanic Heritage Month to show that Latinos are just like everyone
else, but more so. Look—a Mexican astronaut! Golfer! Doctor! No
gardeners here! And don’t be surprised if you hear some MEChA chapter
state some really out-there claim, like that Thomas Alva Edison was
Mexican, that the Aztec empire went as far north as Michigan (because
the state name sounds like Michoacán), or that Mexican women
take it up the butt to protect their virginity.

All of those cultural-pride pendejadas get tiresome after a
while, because it’s nothing more than pandering and assumptions. Ask
Mexicans what they’re proud of, and they’ll probably point to their
shiny new Silverado.

I’ve noticed that areas with lots of recent Mexican immigrants
have stores that sell nothing but water. I find this very odd. Do
people recently arrived from Mexico not know that tap water here is
potable? How can these stores survive selling nothing but water,
anyway?

Agua Pa’ la Raza

Dear Gabacha: Mexicans can never get far from the bottle, whether
it’s H2O or Herradura. In a 2002 survey, the Public Policy Institute of
California found that 55 percent of Latinos in the state drink bottled
water, compared to 30 percent of gabachos. It’s definitely a
custom smuggled over from Mexico, where tap water remains fraught with
nasty viruses and bugs and crap. So it seems the Mexican affinity for
Arrowhead is another case of assimilation gone dead, huh?

But another possibility is suggested by Dr. Strangelove, or How I
Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. In the 1964 Stanley
Kubrick classic, Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper reveals that
fluoride-contaminated tap water is a commie plot that’s robbing America
of its precious bodily fluids. Mexicans want no part of that. We want
our mecos healthy and hopping, so when it comes time to
repopulate after the bomb hits, we can turn all surviving
gabachitas into baby mills.

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net,
myspace.com/ocwab or facebook.com/garellano; find him on Twitter;
or write via snail mail at Gustavo Arellano, P.O. Box 1433, Anaheim, CA
92815-1433!

This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.