¡ASK A MEXICAN!

Dear Mexican: Why do Hispanics deny that George Zimmerman is Hispanic? He did nothing wrong and has been crucified in the media — La Raza cannot bow down to the race baiters and race traitors that call themselves African-American leaders!
— Brown and Down

Dear Wab: This column is ¡Ask a Mexican!, not ¡Ask a Hispanic!, but I'll play, only because negrito-hating pendejos like you need to get smacked down. No Latinos deny that Zimmerman is half-Peruvian, and the reason we're joining African-American leaders in vilifying him is because Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, a story of racial profiling gone horribly wrong that our respective communities know far too well. Wish there was a joke here — oh, wait, it's your tortured logic. ¡Gracias!

We have much in common. I live in Washington, D.C.; you live in Wab-ington, OC. My fair city is the capital of Los Gabachos Unidos de America; your
fair city is the capitol of La Raza Mojada. You have a poorly disguised desire to abandon your Mexican heritage and become a gabacho: you use English like a native, you vote, you pay taxes. I have a poorly disguised desire to rise above gabachismo and become Mexican: I butcher Spanish and I listen to son huasteco, son jarocho, corridos from the 1940s and '50s, and mariachi — the jinete variety without the trumpets, as played on the haciendas. (Notice the lame attempt to appear more authentic than those fresas who listen to urban mariachi with trumpets.) You console yourself with the thought that, no matter how much you fall short as a gabacho, you will never be Guatamalan. I console myself with the thought that, in spite of having been born next to the border, I will never be from West Virginia. What's a failure of a vendido to do but hide his despair behind racial slurs directed at the object of his aspirations? Ah, but your racist Rolodex is so much more extensive than mine.
Which brings me to my request. You've created a glossary for those of us who need to expand our Rolodexes, but you haven't updated or expanded it in a long time. Please, help out a brother crypto-vendido and add some new Spanish language epithets to your glossary periodically. Yours in the despecho, born of ambición frustrada, sign me:
— Frito Bandito (Cockney rhyming slang for "crypto-vendido")

Dear Gabacho: BRAVO! Here I am, plugging the hell out of my new book, Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America — and you're plugging the glossary for my ¡Ask a Mexican! tome! I should hire you to do publicity! But you bring up a great challenge, one I'm more than happy to extend to my readers. So, gentle readers: time to create a new glossary for this columna that's the Mexi equivalent of The Devil's Dictionary, something that'll further teach gabas the essentials of us. Example: "Mujer: Mexican worker whose only purpose is to make sure fresh tortillas greet the familia daily." Surely, ustedes can do better than me! Start sending them in, and I'll compile the best in an upcoming column!

BUY TACO USA! Gentle cabrones: My much-promised Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, has finally hit bookstores! Place your order with your favorite local bookstore, your finer online retailers, your craftier piratas, but place it: my libro editor has already promised to deport me from the publishing industry if we don't sell enough copies! And stay tuned for book signing info!

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano, or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

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