Fifty years of bloody conflict in Colombia — thousands of deaths from firefights, sniper attacks, bombings, assassinations and mass executions — and it all comes down to this: a group of government negotiators and rebel leaders sitting around a big table, talking about land reform and crop subsidies and what…
Katherine Archuleta has had a long, distinguished career in public service — much of it in Colorado — and it came to the end of a tough chapter on Friday, when she resigned as director of the Office of Personnel Management, where she’d been given a warm welcome just twenty…
Dear Mexican: I live in New York, where taco trucks are a fairly recent addition to the urban landscape. I’ve noticed that they always serve their tacos with double tortillas. Why? I’m a longtime lover of Mexican food and own several Mexican cookbooks, but their recipes never call for this…
Dear Mexican: Your column about Chicanos loving the Aztecs had me both cracking up and intellectually fortified. In the end, you wrote: “But, hey: If you want to change your name from José González to Nezahualcoyotl Moctezuma and go to sweat lodges on weekends even though you’re lighter-skinned than a…
Dear Mexican: Where is my America? I’m half-Hispanic and half-Italian. I was born in Coney Island to a drug-addicted father and was raised by my mom, who had to work. We were very poor. I’ve always had to struggle for basic possessions. Spanish was not spoken in my house, so…
Sex, blackmail and Republican politics make for a potent brew, which explains why a story involving an alleged attempt by Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman (and former Congressman Tom Tancredo) to force Colorado GOP chair Steve House to resign or else face exposure over a supposed affair continues to gather…
At tonight’s Denver City Council meeting, members will be reviewing an unusual cluster of big-ticket development projects, amounting to several hundred million dollars of proposed public expenditures and “in kind” giveaways of revenue and property. All of them have profound implications for Denver’s north side, and all are dear to…
Dear Mexican: I’m not sure if this is solely an Orange County thing, but as a high-school student in SanTana, I can’t help but realize that the great majority of rockabilly kids are Mexican. Why is this? Weren’t the ’40s and ’50s kind of a bad time for Mexicans? Chicana…
Today is the final day of a three-day fast and vigil in front of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) headquarters in Washington, D.C. to call attention to what advocates — including a group from Colorado — say are unjustified deportations. Arturo Hernandez Garcia, an immigrant living in sanctuary in a Denver…
Dear Mexican: Why are lowrider artists obsessed with surly clowns? I went to an exhibition of the art of Mr. Cartoon in Venice Beach years ago, and the clowns in his art were downright disturbing. I’ve seen these nasty clowns on T-shirts and in a bunch of other places, too…
Kelly Leid does not favor snap-button shirts, Wranglers and Tony Lamas. He’s more of a polo-shirt-and-khakis guy. The headgear on display in his office includes hard hats but no cowboy hats, ten-gallon or otherwise. Yet Leid, a Colorado native, has a soft spot for the state’s Western heritage, and he’s…
Dear Mexican: Do your countrymen still worship the rock band Santana? Or are they looked at like the Who in England and Crosby, Stills and Nash in America: relics from the good ol’ Woodstock days? Abraxas to the Maxas Dear Gabacho: Mexicans never actually worshipped Carlos Santana, who was born…
When Governor John Hickenlooper vetoed legislation pertaining to the elimination of red-light traffic cameras and photo-radar traffic enforcement, he did so knowing that plenty of people supported the measures and have been fighting for their passage for years. That’s clear from his statement about the vetoes and the letters he…
Last month’s election in Denver wasn’t packed with surprises. True, Tim O’Brien upset Chris Nevitt in the auditor’s contest. But Mayor Michael Hancock won reelection easily, as did clerk and recorder Debra Johnson, and Debbie Ortega, Paul López, Mary Beth Susman, Christopher Herndon and Albus Brooks retained their seats on the Denver…
Last year, a bill to make driving under the influence a felony under certain conditions fell short in the Colorado general assembly — and the ACLU of Colorado, which opposed the measure, was pleased by the development. This year, however, a tweaked version of the measure passed, and Governor John…
Dear Mexican: From what I’ve seen and heard, Mexicans are very family-oriented. They take the names of their mothers and fathers, live with extended family, take carpooling to the nth degree, and tattoo the names of their children across their bodies. We recently had a party and invited one of…
Arturo Hernandez Garcia has been in sanctuary in Denver for more than seven months, living in the basement of a Unitarian church in order to avoid deportation. On Wednesday, his supporters gathered on the steps of the Capitol building to once again publicly ask federal immigration officials to allow Hernandez Garcia…
Politicians typically write books if they’re eyeing a run for national office — something Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper has repeatedly denied, despite his name popping up numerous times over the years as a possible vice presidential candidate. So let the speculation begin anew: Hickenlooper has announced that his top speechwriter,…
Dear Mexican: Why do white people love Marco Rubio and cry at his speeches? Rubio was in town selling his vision-for-America mierda to his gabacho constituency, and they drank it up like Tía’s fresh jamaica. They wondered why we Mexicans can’t get behind the Great Brown Hope. Do we know…
Dear Mexican: My beloved niece married a boy of Mexican extraction. I am very fond of him, but he and his family hold us at arm’s length. It’s very difficult to get close and has made me back off. My niece has told me that his mother “doesn’t like white…
In January, Frank Ruybalid, the embattled top prosecutor for Colorado’s Third Judicial District, resolved a long-running state ethics investigation by pleading guilty to thirteen violations of professional conduct rules for attorneys, essentially admitting that he’d mishandled the prosecution of several criminal cases that ended up being dismissed. Ruybalid was put…
When Dennis Gallagher steps down as city auditor in nine weeks, at the end of his third and final term, his departure will mark the end of one of the most impressive — and long-lived — careers in elected office in state history. Gallagher was an obscure thirty-year-old speech professor…
