Dear Mexican: Why, oh why, do most Mexican women in the United
States cut their long, black hair after reaching the pivotal age of 40?
Not only do they cut it short; they then proceed to dye it all shades
of the most unnatural hair color for Mexicans: red. My own madre
is guilty of this offense! Why is this the case? Why do women in
Mexico tend keep their long flowing hair and trencitas, while
women here in the United States go for the Bozo look?
A Que Tener Pelo Largo
Dear Wab: Mujeres shearing their locks in el Norte has
gone on longer than you think—and it’s not just the geezers.
“During the 1920s, a woman’s decision ‘to bob or not bob’ her hair
assumed classic proportions within Mexican families,” wrote University
of California at Irvine professor Vicki L. Ruiz in her 1999 book,
From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century
America. She was specifically talking about young mexicanas following gabacho youth trends to the consternation of their
elders, but you can use that same rubric with nuestras mothers
and aunts.
I don’t have any empirical data on the number of old ladies with
short hair in the U.S. since the AARP isn’t exactly the Pew Hispanic
Center of viejitos, but nearly every elderly gabacha the
Mexican has ever met, seen or heard about uses their pelo corto.
I’m not a post-menopausal gal, but methinks it has to do with hair
loss, a better framing of the wrinkled face and the creation of an
easier platform to dye those pesky grays. Since Mexicans take to
American habits like we do to the Reconquista, it follows que Mexican ladies copy their gabacha peers.
But why the outrageous hair colores? For once, the Mexican
will not dare answer this pregunta, because you just don’t
question the logic of your madre, whether it’s about her hair
color, superstition or her insistence that Vicks VapoRub and 7-Up cure
everything. You just don’t.
Why is it that Mexicans only want to go back to Mexico after they
kill a gringo?
Gabe Ocho
Dear Gabacho: Such ignorance, such stupidity, such lies! Lou Dobbs,
was that you?
Why do Mexicans put lard in their beans? I don’t know any
fit-‘n’-trim Mexicans. Even the skinny ones have a li’l belly. I just
made some excellent refried beans with Goya extra-virgin olive oil and
butter. Just wondering.
Skinny White Boy Vegetarian From Dallas Who Loves Healthy
Tex-Mex
Dear Gabacho: Refried beans made with olive oil? Why don’t you just
add tomato and capers to ruin it even more? Whatever floats your
barco, but there’s no need to call us a bunch of fatties along
the way.
Besides, you’re muy wrong. Not only does the Mexican know too
many wabby gym rats, all getting their buff bodies ready to further
overrun the United States; lard ain’t what gives the gordos their panzas. “My friend Rick Bayless is skinny, and he loves
lard!” says Robb Walsh, author of The Tex-Mex Cookbook and
perhaps the most Mexican gabacho after the famous Chicago chef.
“As Señor Bayless likes to point out, lard is not
unhealthy—it is lower in saturated fat and cholesterol than
butter. When rendered at a high temperature, as it is in Mexico, lard
has a roast-pork flavor that is part of the traditional taste of
tamales, refried beans and moles. Don’t use the hydrogenated stuff in
the tub—buy your lard at the butcher shop. And it sounds better
if you call it manteca.”
One further food insult from me: Using Goya products to cook Mexican
cuisine is like making your Cuba Libre with Hornitos.
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 Nov 19-25, 2009.
Hey Gustavo Arellano do you belive in border security?
I love this column. The author is an astonishingly good writer and clearly well read and well educated.
About the first letter: some of us women cut our hair at a certain age because we look stupid with long hair. Moreover, if our hair is in good shape, guys mistake us for younger women and when we turn around, we scare them. As for color, after a certain age, dying your hair black makes you look like a vampire.
As to the second letter: my dear departed father used to say “Never argue with an idiot.
To: Ask a Mexican!
Dear Ask a Mexican.
I was wondering if what I experienced happens everywhere in the South West. Last week, Friday, November 20th, I attended a funeral mass for my Tio (Uncle), who passed away. Throughout the mass I was thinking about the Church we were all sitting in; St. Margaret’s Catholic Church in Tucson Arizona. St. Margaret’s is located in the Heart of “Barrio Hollywood” one of the oldest Mexican American communities in Tucson – just like many other Barrios scattered throughout the southwest. Faces of the old and young, generation after generation; gathered to say our last good byes. I was thinking that this was not only where my Uncle married my Tia (Aunt), but that this was also where my parents were married. I was also thinking about the fact that this is the same neighborhood where my Father was raised almost 75 years ago. I could picture the old neighborhood with children playing barefoot in the streets; the families and friends gathered together for different occasions, my Grandparents driving a model –T, the schools that these children attended and so on. The respect that our people had for each other back in the day and of all the cultural history just found in this one Church.
The” highlight” of the funeral was when the eulogy was over and the priest said, “This is why we do not have eulogies….they take up time… we are running late… they are waiting at the cemetery”.
Let me mention that there was not going to be a eulogy in the first place until one of the nephews asked the priest about having one!
I ask myself now, did the priest think there was no one who had anything to say about my Tio, who was now resting? The priest was not only arrogant when asked this question, but also looked surprised. Was it not important to talk about and pay respects to a man who had served in WWII, Korea and during the Vietnam era? Was it not important to know about what a special person he was and what he meant to his family? Besides rolling his eyes when the Mariachi was playing and making an insulting and culturally disparaging comment in front of everyone including my parents, my sisters, my cousins, my Aunts and Uncles and the other hundreds who filled the church and who came to pay their last respects.
Is this the way the Catholic Church operates these days? I guess the priest was more worried about running late, and that the cemetery was going to have to pay extra for its workers? Or was this just an ignorant and brainless priest? Does he need some sensitivity training?
Had this funeral taken place during the extreme summer heat of the desert, where would the eulogy have taken place?
I ask this one question – does the church belong to the people? I thought the people made the church. In addition, if we as Native Mexican American/Chicano people want to play Mexican American music at the church, what business is it of the priest or Bishop which Mexican songs we play for our dead relative? The reason I ask if this is the type of service we get from the Catholic Church is because of the fact that the Spanish entered the South West in 1545 – over four hundred and fifty years ago! Therefore, we posses our own linguistic, cultural and historical integrity as a result of the miscegenation between the Spaniards and different Native American Nations – and this is how we are treated? No wonder people change religion! Finally, I would like to know what actions the Bishop will take after reading this letter. I hope that it will not be similar to the inept response I received this past June that did not answer my question on the position of the Catholic Church in regards to the Senate Bill 1108 attack on ethnic studies which would have removed Mexican American Studies from the Arizona School curriculum? Had I found my large mariachi sombrero and a saguaro to have leaned up upon; I guess I would not have had the time to write this letter. Ask a Mexican! What do you think?
Happy Holidays,
Enrique J. Vega
Graduate – Salpointe Catholic High School
Veteran – United States Marine Corps
Graduate – University of Arizona