Dear Readers: The Mexican wants to beat you to the carne asada case this Labor Day fin de semana, so behold two oldies but goodies I amazingly haven’t yet passed off as new in this columna. The first one is extant and one of my favorite questions ever; for the…
Dear Mexican: You inspired me to rediscover my culture, my pride as a Mexican and love for my people (though it’s hard to love my people at times). I’m writing a college paper on Latin American issues — more specifically, on Mexican apathy, which is deeply rooted here in my…
Dear Mexican: This pregunta has been simmering in my brain for a while, like slow-cooking birria, and the recent question about whether saying “Viva la Raza” is racist reminded me to ask you. According to José Vasconcelos, the Mexican people are La Raza Cósmica (Cosmic Race), which to me seems…
Dear Mexican: My co-worker was driving to work this morning when she realized she was being followed by a Mexican in his vehicle. He followed her for at least three miles on the road, and during this time he waved at her, smiled when she frowned, and even puckered his…
Dear Mexican: I’m curious as to the meaning of the term “Viva la raza,” which I have often heard expressed by my friends and family. I know what it translates to, but I don’t know why we say it. I happen to be what some call a “half-breed,” and therein…
Dear Mexican: I had a conversation today with an eighteen-year-old female Mexican co-worker that completely blew me away. She has a three-month-old baby with her nineteen-year-old (also Mexican) unemployed boyfriend. They have just found out that she is pregnant again. After listening to her sob about it, I asked her…
Dear Mexican: I walked into Carl’s Jr. the other day and gazed at the dozen middle-aged women of Mexican descent hustling and bustling around the kitchen. A flawless performance, yet I couldn’t help but think of my days as a youth and the responsibility I learned from my first job…
Dear Mexican: I live in La Habra, and I’ve noticed that the local Mexicans have a real affinity for palm trees — the more, the better. Some houses have more than fifty planted in a 10’x20′ front yard, so many you can’t see the house. What’s up with this? Is…
Dear Readers: My columna a couple of weeks ago about whether Aztec savagery influences violence in Mexico today drew muchos responses, both bueno and malo. Here are two: Dear Mexican: I enjoy reading all of your replies and was thinking about the last reply you wrote about the violence/Aztec blood…
Dear Mexican: I’m a U.S.-born Mexican who spent part of my life growing up in Tijuana. Why do Mexican-Americans from Santa Ana and South Gate always think they’re harder than the rest of us Mexicans, yet their neighborhoods are like a hundred times better than the colonia I grew up…
Dear Mexican: Recently, a co-worker turned me on to a website that features many videos of unspeakable atrocities the drug cartels are committing in Mexico, many graphically displaying murders and beheadings. I recently saw one of a woman getting her head cut off with a knife! Now I wish I…
Dear Mexican: In Philadelphia, where I live, there are three Spanish-language stations on regular broadcast television. None of them offer English subtitles. I’ll bet plenty of people of all heritages would like to check out Spanish-language television, or the news from Central America or whatever, if we could get subtitles…
Dear Readers: The U.K.’s spectacular Guardian newspaper has asked if I could field some questions for their readers as part of the paper’s summer travel package. Turns out Brits want to know more about Mexican food! Let’s be benevolent toward those buggerers: Their idea of what our comida constitutes comes…
Dear Mexican: I went to a Los Angeles Dodgers game today and noticed that they now have Doyer Dogs, which are disgusting and covered in nacho cheese, jalapeños and chili. Not that it doesn’t have potential, but this is Dodger Stadium, not a food truck. But my question: Do you…
Dear Mexican: Like many Americans, I’ve heard about the Fast and Furious scandal, in which our own ATF was shown to be corrupt and guilty of supplying guns that ended up in the hands of the drug cartels. I also recently saw a report about the violence in Mexico, and…
Dear Mexican: Where did the notion of adding an -o to the end of an English word and assuming it makes it a Spanish word come from? Juanito Dear Wab: “Anglos have long held power in making Spanish and Spanish-speaking culture invisible,” writes University of South Florida assistant professor of…
Dear Mexican: Why is it that people from Chihuahua and Monterrey are such jackasses? They come from pinches ranchitos and talk about their haciendas, and they cross the border and act as if their cagada does not stink. Why do they act as if they are better than us American…
Dear Mexican: Although I’m familiar with your column, I don’t read it regularly. But today I was struck by something you said recently. And I quote: “We called ourselves Spanish, we considered ourselves white.” I’m Mexican, and I consider myself “white” because I’m not black or red or Asian. I…
Dear Mexican: I have always liked ranchera music. As of late, I have wanted to get deeper into it as far as the history, the culture and especially the songs and lyrics go. The older I get, the more rancheras seem like poetry to me…sounds cursi, I know. I was…
Dear Mexican: What do we need to do to make the güeros understand that we come in peace? As Mexicans, we are from this great American continent as well, but in the average closed-minded English-speaking folks’ definition of “American,” it’s amusing to see they don’t understand what it really means…
Dear Mexican: We’re in state testing this week at the high school where I teach. After the students finish a section, they can only sit and read or just sit. I did an experiment: I chose the cholo-est, most tatted, pierced non-readers and dropped your book on their desk. Students…
Dear Mexican: Please explain to me why so many mexicanas seem to think it more important to stay home and baby-sit than to attend school (so that they may become more in life than producers of offspring). As an educator (lately of students identified as “at risk” for failure in…
