Dear Mexican: I used to frequent a cantina in Chicago where half
the bar patrons were Polack, the other half beaner. The Polacks would
speak in their native tongue and either start or finish all of their
sentences with the word kurwa. I understand this to mean “whore”
in their language. On the other half of the bar, the beaners would
utilize the word buey in all of their sentences. Sometimes, the
beaners would become emotional and interpolate buey with pinche, as in pinche buey. Perhaps the Polacks and beaners
were talking about the other group at the bar!

I understand that the word buey in mexicanismo is a
castrated bull, but I’ve got to imagine that the beaners are not always
talking about castrated bulls. However, I can understand why the
Polacks are always talking about whores. What are the ramificaciones?

El Polaco Loco

Dear Loco Polack: Chingao, wabs and Polacks at a bar! Where’s
a mick when you need one?

I think you misheard the word and meant güey, derived
from buey, which is an ox, the word Mexicans use to call someone
an ass—not a hooved ass, but an ass ass. Like madre,
güey is a Swiss Army knife in Mexican-Spanish cussing—we
use it affectionately (“¡No mames, güey!” translates
as “Don’t suck dick, ass!” but actually means “Don’t bullshit me,
brother!”), in anger (“Eres un pinche güey” is “You’re a
fucking idiot”) or as a boast (“No me haces
güey“—”You won’t make an ass out of me”).

Ramifications? Use with caution—if you say that to a man, you
might get a backslap or kick in the huevos depending on the
circumstance, just like its bro cousin: fuckface.

I’m half-Hispanic and half-white. I’m really opposed to illegal
immigration and any type of free health care to illegals, because, as a
health-care worker, I see too many Americans who can’t afford health
care..

My question: Would a Mexican support a bill that would tax only
illegals who transfer money to Mexico? Now, you and me both know that
the illegal has a cousin who is an American who will do the transfer
for him. Anyways, if I was a Mexican who joined the League of United
Latin American Citizens (LULAC), I would kinda like it. The reason is
100 percent of the tax goes to illegal-immigrant health care, and not a
dime would go to a homeless American. If this bill is passed, illegals
can now claim they pay taxes! Wow, and since the majority of them are
living in poverty, the majority would get the benefit from this tax.
How would a Mexican vote?

Dr. Chichis, M.D.

Dear Wab: Before we begin, déjame deal with your
health-care assertions. The Pew Hispanic Center found this year that
illegals and their kids constituted solamente 17 percent of the
nation’s total uninsured, and a 2006 RAND report estimated that the
undocumented make up only “1.5 percent of the country’s total national
medical costs, half as large as their 3.2 percent population
share”—and even they think that number might be overblown, since
the survey focused solely on the Los Angeles area, and they noted the
city “has the reputation of being an immigrant-friendly location for
these services.” So for you and others to portray Mexicans as
health-care leeches is false, not to mention immoral.

The answer to your actual question: A Mexican wouldn’t care about
your Mickey Mouse bill. Even if the bill were enacted, Mexicans would
circumvent electronic transfers by using courier services or smuggling
cash in tires on trips back home. We already know how to come into this
country illegally—you think bad legislation can stop us?
Craftiness is in our DNA the way güey-ness infests the
Guatemalan mind.

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 Dec 3-9, 2009.