Here is my problem: I was raised in a typical gabacho family. My siblings and I all enjoy a typical gabacho relationship. We are close as cats. I phoned my brother the year before last, and was gratified to learn that he was still alive. That call went so well that I may phone him again next year.
Now I am in love with a Mexican woman, and that word “family” has taken on a horrifying new meaning. When we first fell in love, I just wanted to be one with them. I wanted to grow a moustache like Vicente Fernandez. I wanted to buy cars just to park them in my front yard. But that was many weekends ago. Many weekends, and carnes, and quinces. And Sunday mornings, with primos who I barely know, all crudo on my sofa. The lady and I are still in love. Me and her family? Less so.
Help me, Mexican. I want to keep the woman and lose the family. My Anglo neighbors are complaining about the cars, and my liver cannot take one more little kids’ birthday party. Until I hear from you, call me …
A Gabacho Besieged
Dear Gabacho: Sorry, but you’re caca out of luck on this one. You only have one true point of contention here: Mexicans never let drunken cousins sleep on the couch—that’s what the back of a pickup truck is for.
The only advice I can give you for the next fiesta is to find the table in the backyard where the women, the pocho side of the family, and the closeted gay cousins hang out and gossip. Oh, and morning birria helps repair your liver.
My carpool partner was illegal until three years ago, when she got married. She said just like her gente need to learn English, everyone else needs to learn español. What’s that all about?
Learn English First so You Can Debate Correctly
Dear Gabachos: It’s all about the many studies showing people who speak two languages have a better-functioning, slower-aging brain. Learn logic first so you can debate correctly, pinche puto pendejo baboso.
If the money situation in Mexico, Honduras and other countries is so dire, where do the immigrants find the thousands of dollars to pay the coyotes to bring them into America? Would the money they pay for illegal entry not be better spent caring for their families?
From what I have read, $1,000 goes a very long way in supporting a family in Mexico. Are they aware that the coyotes will leave them to die rather than face capture? Do the immigrants realize that their capture means their return to their country of origin—minus the money they used in the hopes of entry? Is it true that the Mexican authorities kill or imprison illegal entrants into their country? Why is this done when they expect kinder treatment for entry into the U.S.?
I may have my facts garbled, because I have no firsthand knowledge of how or why the people come to this country looking for a haven. I would appreciate an honest answer from a person with firsthand knowledge.
Gabacha
Dear Gabacha: From a lifetime of savings and probably family loans, probably not (simple economics, chica), yes (it’s the risk that goes with paying a stranger thousands of dollars for entering the United States), yes (that’s why they do it again), maybe (probably not the killing, but for sure the imprisonment and maltreatment), hypocrisy (but blame that on the Mexican government, not the people), and because the United States is the greatest damn nation on Earth—after Zacatecas, of course.
GOOD MEXICAN OF THE WEEK!
Keep sending in your choices, gente! Books, CDs, professors, nonprofits, hot chicks—the more, the merrier!
This article appears in Aug 11-17, 2011.
How about getting rid of “Ask A Mexican.”
I think it is obnoxious, sophomoric and irrelevant.
Why is it in the paper?
Stupid shit! Pura pinche mierda! Nada mas que babosadas!
With the leadership and direction of University of California Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau latino enrollment fell and out of state jumped fall 2010-11 Contra Costa Times M Krupnick
Chancellors, Faculty University of California Berkeley (UC Berkeley) have cleaned up at the expense of students, California taxpayers. Californians face mortgage defaults, 12% unemployment, pay reductions, loss of unemployment benefits. UC Berkeley shares sacrifices? No Chancellor, Faculty layoffs or wage concessions. UC Berkeley tuition, fee increases are arrogance. If wages better elsewhere, chancellors, vice chancellors, tenured, non tenured faculty, UCOP apply for positions. If wages are what commit you to Cal, leave for better paying job.
UC Berkeley wages must reflect California’s ability to pay, not what others are paid. There is no good reason to raise tuition, fees during the longest, deepest recession in USA history when wage concessions available from Chancellors, Faculty. The sky will not fall on UC Berkeley.
Share the sacrifices UC Berkeley Faculty, Vice Chancellors, Provost, Chancellor:
No furloughs.
18 percent reduction in UCOP salaries & $50 million cut.
18 percent prune of campus chancellors’, vice chancellors’ salaries.
15 percent trim of tenured faculty salaries, increase teaching load.
10 percent decrease non-tenured faculty salaries, increase research, teaching load.
100% elimination of all Academic Senate, Academic Council costs, wages.
(17,000 UC paid employees earn more than $100,000)
UC Board of Regents Chair Sherry Lansing can bridge public trust gap with reassurances salaries of Chancellors, Faculty reflect depressed California wages.
With UC’s shared sacrifices, sky will not fall on the 10 campuses.
I love the Mexican! (And recommend his books!) He educates, he entertains, and his observations on culture are so right. He is sort of an anti-Danehy. I’d be disappointed if you got rid of him just so the know-nothings had no excuse for their ignorance.
Pinche puto pendejo baboso! comments like that make you sound like petulant schoolboy. Grow up!
TXJesse,
You have got to be one of the biggest pendejos I’ve ever come across. You read the column and then complain, and then read the next one that is posted. I get a kick out of the opportunity that you give so many readers to use words against you that you are sure are curse words, but cannot begin to fathom the depth of their meaning.
Gustavo Arellanos column is both humorous and insightful. Go back to that state where you came from, you know the one that has six flags flying over it. That’s right one of them is, let’s see, Mexican!