Dear Readers: Many of ustedes must be scratching your heads right now. “What happened to ¡Ask a Mexican!” you’re preguntando yourselves. “Who the hell is this cholo nerd where the Mexican logo used to be?”
It is I, gentle cabrones: your eternal Mexican. Gustavo Arellano, child of immigrants from Zacatecas, one whom came to el Norte in 1969 in the trunk of a Chevy driven by a hippie chick from Huntington Beach. And I’m triste to say that this columna is coming to an end. Ustedes probably don’t know this, but my day job during the life of ¡Ask a Mexican! was at OC Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Orange County, California, where I was born and raised. (Don’t believe The Real Housewives of Orange County: there’s a chingo of raza here.) I started as a staff writer, then became managing editor, then was editor for nearly six years until Oct. 13, when I resigned instead of laying off half my staff, just like the Weekly’s owner wanted me to. No me rajé, and I’ll never regret quitting my dream job because I know I did the right thing.
But with me leaving the Weekly, I also must leave behind ¡Ask a Mexican! See, I don’t own the trademark to the title, and I’m can’t pay muchos pesos for something that the Weekly’s owner (or the ones before him) should’ve given to me as a gift for 13 years of being the hardest-working Mexican this side of Beto Durán.
I thought about continuing under a different name (¡Ask a Pocho! ¡Query a Mexican! ¡Pregunta, Pendejo! But then I realized I don’t have to continue the column anymore. See, I’ve been to el cerro. And I’ve seen the Promised Land of Aztlán.
It sure doesn’t seem like that at a time when millions of our friends and familia are at risk of deportation, when Donald Trump wants to build a border wall (man, where’s Alex Lora when you need him?) and when gabachos keep mistaking Día de los Muertos for Halloween. But we’re now at a place where whip-smart humor is at the touch of a meme. Where our political and economic power continues to soar like voladores totonacos. We live in an era where everyone can be a defender of la raza against gabachos, whether said gabas assault us or try to claim Rick Bayless is great.
In other words, ¡Ask a Mexican! is no longer necessary, because Mexicans have won a war that began when Sir Francis Drake sunk the Spanish Armada. We’re here, y no nos vamos. We’re victims no longer; we’re actually chingonas. And the sooner Mexicans realize this, the better we’ll be.
I’ll let others debate whether my attempt to fight racism with satire and stats was visionary or just vendido. I’ll still answer questions about Mexicans on The Tom Leykis Show on the last Wednesday of every month at 4 p.m. (tune in to blowmeuptom.com), because doing so keeps my mind Julio Cesar Chavez sharp and not Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. soft.
But in print, no más. Besides, let ¡Ask a Mexican! die, and let its passing join the pantheon of gabacho atrocities against Mexicans, like the U.S. stealing half of Mexico or Rick Bayless.
I wish modern-day journalism allowed me more print space, so my thanks must be brief. Gracias to: friends, Marge, family, my chica; All the papers that carried my columna over the years; Santo Niño de Atocha; Will Swaim; Daniel Hernandez. David Kuhn. So many more.
Nos vemos, gentle cabrones. Follow me on social media to see what I do next, and hook a compa up with bacanora! No se rajen against evil. Diga no a la piratería ¡Viva la Reconquista! Oh, and #fucktrump.
Email Gustavo at mexicanwithglasses@gmail.com, be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano.
This article appears in Oct 26 – Nov 1, 2017.
Dear Mexican: thank you for your many years of opening the eyes and minds of us gabachos, as well as entertaining us. Good luck on your next endeavor, and I’ll see you on social media!
I will miss your insight and humor. It is always good to see the view from both sides of the river. Are you a samurai dreaming you are a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming you are a samurai? Or, in this case, are you a gringo dreaming you are
are a Mexican or a Mexican dreaming you are taking a siesta? bios con dios.
Que triste, indeed. Will find you on social media hopefully. ojale que, we may meet again. Vayos con dios!
It’s about time.
Dear Mexican,
Thank you for your column. Perhaps a book is the next step? Whatever you choose to do, I wish you the best.
Yo soy triste! Me gusta mucho las palabras and the wisdom of ‘El Mexicano’, as it applies to the contentious issues which divide this nation and THIS community
‘El Mexicano’ is RIGHT cuando el dice “The Mexicans are here to stay”. To which I add “they’ve always BEEN here, longer than we Gringos, and in MY house tortillas and beans were ALWAYS more American than apple pie!”
He is WRONG if he thinks that the solution to our mutual cultural problems is continued Open Borders and continued illegal entry of impoverished Mexican citizens who are then subjected to political and economic exploitation. (aka what Ive called Open Border Policy since 2004)
In The Grapes of Wrath, the socialist John Steinbeck taught us an undeniable lesson but a lesson long forgotten by Americas Left Wing, to wit:
Excess labor ALWAYS leads to lower wages and ultimate misery for the working man!
The Right Wing NEVER forgot this lesson which, since Reagan’s 1987 Amnesty, is actually the driving force behind continued Open Border Policy and the industrial strength importation of impoverished Mexican citizens.
Now that Ive actually seen what this self-identified nerd looks like, I will seek him out, grab him up and say:
“Lets drink some cerveza . Then lets go after those PENDEJOS who have STOLEN your name!”
And AMIGO, I, the ‘NOTORIOUS MEXICAN FLAG BURNER’, know just HOW to do it!