Dear Mexican: I’m listening to a podcast on “Gravy.” The segment is Bluegrass tacos. You were interviewed and a few statements bothered me. “The US can take half of Mexico. They can make us peons, force us to move up North.” Is this a common shared view of America(ns) in your community? If so, very disappointing that in 2017, you would express this bias/prejudice against this amazing country. How were you forced to move North? Do you recognize/appreciate all the opportunities that this country has given you and other Mexicans that have came here? Would like to know your views. My initial opinion of you is that you are holding onto the “we are an oppressed people, and can’t believe what America has done to us.” There is always a “great” country to the south that offers so much more without the oppression that has openings for residency. Let me know what you think.
—Ticked Off in Tulsa
Dear Gabacho: You know what I think? You’re a pendejo. The podcast is called Gravy, and it’s an extension of the James Beard-winning food journal, for which I write a column called “Good Ol’ Chico” where write about the Latino South. And what you call “bias/prejudice” are straight-up facts. The United States did steal half of Mexico, but you don’t have to take my word—just ask Ulysses S. Grant, who said that the Mexican-American War was “one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.” I don’t have to “hold on” to the idea that Mexicans are oppressed—we know it’s true every time whiny gabachos like yourself insist that we love this country just like you. The cool thing, though, is that we don’t let pendejos like you get in the way of creating a better America. Finally ever heard of a little chingadera called NAFTA—you know, the one thing Donald Trump gets right? It not only stole jobs from American workers, it upended Mexico’s economy, forcing millions of people to el Norte. And, yes, they were forced—just like the Irish were forced to leave Eire due to the brutal British, or the Jews who fled pogroms, or the Okies who got out of the Dust Bowl for a better chance at life. My, how quickly Oklahomans forget their own history—sad that a Mexican has to teach you about your own people, but that happens only in America.
I always noticed that some second-generation, even third-generation Mexican-Americans speak English with an accent. I understand that English might not be their first language. But why do some Americans like Cheech Marin or Danny Trejo, who’ve been here for more generations, still have an accent, and a first-generation wab like me has been told I speak English like a white person, whatever that means?
—Pocho Pero Paisa
Dear Pocho: Trejo and Cheech have an accent the way a mick in Southie has an accent, or the way characters on Fargo speak in their own unique way. It’s regional American English—in their case, Chicano English borne by generations of assimilation in the Southwest. Us children of modern-day Mexicans sometimes get that accent, sometimes don’t, because we learn English as a second language, not as our primary one. The most prominent practitioner of Chicano English is George Lopez, who once tried to make this column into a television show, then let the option lapse. Hey, George: let’s take more meetings, you know?
Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or Instagram @gustavo_arellano!
This article appears in Jul 27 – Aug 2, 2017.
If the U.S. took half of Mexico then the U.S. took half of France in the Louisiana Purchase. The Mexican Cession was primarily unoccupied country (neither Mexico nor the U.S. ever counted Native Americans) with arbitrary lines drawn back in Europe based on a few Spaniards on horses riding through the area years earlier and some treaties made with Spain. Santa Anna gladly handed it over for some quick money to save his butt. Mexico couldn’t control that region and had very little population there and, quite likely, if the U.S. hadn’t taken it, someone else would have or it would’ve seceded from Mexico anyway. It was a semi-autonomous region with constant revolts and mixed populations.
Besides, Mexico stole it from Spain 25 years earlier (who stole it from the Apaches, Navajos, Hopis, Utes, Pasquas, etc.). Not saying the war was right, far from it, but let’s not make up a simplistic and misleading history in order to create some vast grievance that justifies illegal immigration all the while pretending to be teaching stupid Americans their true history.
And Mexicans were forced North like the Irish? I must’ve missed the news of the famine and the U.N. airlifts of rice and flour. Comparing it to the potato famine is hyperbole.
Migrants came north not due to famine, but because of a population surge prior to widespread use of birth control, economic disruptions and lack of opportunity (partly based on policies their own government set), and better money was available in the U.S. These are the same reasons most immigrants came here. But you make it sound like the big bad U.S. forced them into NAFTA and it was a choice between death and immigration. This is over-simplification to advance an agenda.
Not saying anything for or against Mexican immigrants, or minimizing all of the crap Mexico and Mexicans have put up with from the U.S. and Americans over the years, but if you twist and over-simplify history with the transparent goal of creating a special right for Mexicans to immigrate to the U.S., you lose all credibility.
BSLAP: Nice post. I’d like to contact you. How can we connect?
The problem with “The Mexican” is his inability to separate his Left Wing bias from his (presumed) nationality.
His he a “Mexican” (born in Mexico) and a citizen of Mexico? If so he represents a minority viewpoint.
Is he an “American” born in America who believes he is a “Chicano”? If so he is simply a “left winger,” as the majority of Americans of Hispanic descent (and former Mexican citizens who immigrated HERE lawfully) do NOT share his “open borders” viewpoint.
As for land: what WAS formerly Mexico, is NOW America, paid for with blood and treasure. ALL land in EVERY country around the world was at one time paid for with blood and treasure.
Get used to it, Chico!
Fuck you ROY Warden!… Funny how CNN and all the supposedly “Liberal” news media conveniently omit how NAFTA fucked over millions of Mexican families since it was passed into law in 1994. Where’s all the “outrage” over this injustice and why is it always left out of the immigration debate when gabachos like you bitch about the “problem” of “illegals” which any half wit knows is code for “Mexicans”. Oh, and by the way, when it comes to making a choice between going to El Norte “illegally” to find a job to feed your family or staying in MEXICO and starving is the very DEFINITION of a “life or death” decision, ok?