Dear Mexican: For as long as I can remember, Mexicans were known
for doing three things: Drinking lots of cerveza, having lots
of niños and saying, “¡Ay, caramba!” While I
can vouch for the first two, I’ve never, ever personally heard a
Mexican utter those famous two words. Is this an urban myth, or
what?

Armenian Andy

Dear Armo: Now, ¡Ay, caramba! might not be as popular
or as peculiarly Mexican a swear as, say, “pinche puto pendejo
baboso,” “¡Cu-le-ro!” or the many epithets derived
from the word mamá (mother), but Mexicans do say
it—but not as often as gabachos would love to believe,
Bart Simpson catchphrase notwithstanding. Caramba is a euphemism
for carajo, which means “penis” and is a preferred curse word
for those fey South Americans and Spaniards, and the bowdlerized
¡Ay, caramba! roughly translates as: “Darn it!”

How it became the most-cited Spanish minced oath in American
literature (you can find citations in newspapers dating back to the
1850s) is an academic research paper waiting to be written, one the
Mexican will theorize thusly: Since caramba doubles as a
vulgarity (but was uttered much more frequently in genteel days), since
it’s a printable expletive, and since gabachos have always
wanted their documented Mexicans spicy and foul-mouthed, writers
published the interjection as often as possible. (An 1889 New York
Sun story ridiculously quoted the Italian patriot Garibaldi as
mouthing it!) That was the case until it became a saying inextricably
linked with Mexicans in the gabacho imagination for decades,
à la “Vaya con Diós” and “Poor Mexico—so far
from God, so close to the United States.”

Ah, for the days when gabachos merely thought we took siestas
under cactuses and used funny catchphrases instead of our present-day
status as illegal-alien savages!

REMINDER TO MEXICANS

Keep sending in your 50-word essays on your favorite mariachi tunes
so gabachos can carry a cheat sheet while they drinko por Cinco!
Deadline is April 28.

I live in Houston and find it depressing to see beggars in the
middle of most busy intersections. I’m equally irritated when I am
accosted for change when I leave a drug store. (I always fish the
receipt out of the bag and call the store from the car to report the
panhandler.) Why is it I never see a homeless Mexican or a Mexican
panhandler? (I haven’t noticed any Asian or Middle Eastern homeless or
panhandlers, either.) Is there a lesson in responsibility to be shared
here?

Bring Back Warren Moon!

Dear Gabacho: Because Mexicans all get free benefits, welfare,
subsidized housing and health care—don’t you pay attention to Lou
Dobbs?

Of course there are homeless Mexicans and panhandlers, and I’m sure
there are more than a couple such chinitos and Mohammedans. But
you’re correcto to question the seeming lack of Mexicans living
on sidewalks or asking for your spare change. The 2004 Encyclopedia
of Homelessness refers to this phenomenon as the “Latino paradox”:
“Despite their socioeconomic position, Latinos are underrepresented
among the homeless population in the United States,” writes contributor
Gregory Acevedo. He noted researchers have frequently attributed such a
contradiction to perceived cultural traits—you know, how Mexicans
are all about la familia and comunidad, and that we don’t
let raza fall so far down the socioeconomic scale like
gabachos do to their own—but argues such theories “do not
adequately explain” the paradox and warns that increased assimilation
means Mexis will become more like gabachos—ergo, more
Hispanic homeless.

But don’t be a carajo, Bring Back—if you see a homeless
person, call your local Catholic Worker.

SHOUT-OUT TO

The University of Texas at Arlington’s Center for Mexican American
Studies, which graciously allowed the Mexican to give its Distinguished
Lecture last week. A packed house had a bueno old time as I
shared stories, read my favorite columns and stole white women from
their esposos. Colleges: If you want the Mexican to invade your
campus, e-mail me!

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

This article appears in Apr 9-15, 2009.