Ask a Mexican!
By Gustavo Arellano
Dear Mexican: What's up with the bull stickers on the truck doors? Is this a secret business, something earned at some unmentionable contest south of the border, or a brotherhood of sorts?
—Native Californian Whitey
Dear Gabacho: The bull sticker is no cloak-and-dagger marker. Toros on trucks are just cultural archetypes, a manifestation of Jung's theory that recurring characters, festivals and monuments in society represent a shared memory from its collective unconscious. Americans decorate their lives with such motifs: lawns (reminder of—take your pick—the savannahs of our African roots, English manors or the open prairie from the frontier days), Thanksgiving (ceremony honoring our Puritan forefathers) and the continued popularity of Mickey Mouse (signifies our fascination with the trickster). Likewise, Mexicans consider the bull a reminder of the rancho they left behind, of the life that will never return. Consider the attributes of the animal on display: ferocity. Virility. Protection. Horns. It's everything a culture wishes its members could be—and so much better than the fruity shamrock or "RSM" city-initials decal on your Scion, no?
I've often wondered how Mexicans would react if 25 million piss-poor Chinamen snuck into Mexico and took up residence. Would they be greeted with open arms? Or would armed men greet them?
—Bicoastal Curious
Dear Gabacha: Damn straight we'd kick those chinos down to Guatemala. In fact, Mexican-on-Chinese violence is one of Mexico's darkest legacies, on par with the Conquest and the donkey show. Mexican government officials used the pandemonium of the Mexican Revolution to discriminate against, evict and sometimes even massacre entire Chinese communities in a strategy known as el movimiento anti-chino. "Leaders of the anti-Chinese movement promulgated a wide array of invidious legislation, including discriminatory labor laws and public health circulars, anti-miscegenation laws, and residential segregation laws," writes UCLA's Dr. Robert Chao Romero, a Yorba Linda-based attorney and the country's leading authority on the Chinese in Mexico.
The Mexican Anti-Chinese Movement was understandable—Chinese immigrants worked hard, built successful businesses, established themselves in civic life and made the natives in their adopted country look like lazy pendejos. I get why you and so many gabachos hate Mexicans.
Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net. Be his fan on Facebook. Follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano!
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