Illustration by Mark Dancy Dear Mexican,
We've been keeping tabs on your wab-ology lessons and were wondering if you've ever heard the term "chunti" (pronounced "chewn-tee"). It's what people from the Central Valley agricultural mecca call the newly crossed, yet-to-assimilate Mexicans or those who haven't quite figured out how to. We're talking a pimped-out '96 Dodge Neon with mexi-chrome hubcaps whose driver wears an airbrushed T-shirt with the Virgin Mary overlooking three gangstas and their lowriders. We don't know if it's unique to the Central Valley, but we haven't heard it since moving to SoCal, and none of our local friends is familiar with the term.
The Pocho & His Guera Wife
Dear Pocho and Gabacha,
We Mexican-Americans in Orange County created "wab" to describe our wabby brothers and sisters, and all you Central Valley wabs could come up with to insult your unassimilated paisanos is "chunti"?! "Chunti" is shorthand for "chuntaro," what Mexicans in Mexico call the poorer, rural Mexicans -- what wabs call wabs. As a slur, "chuntaro" has never caught on with the children of Mexican immigrants like "wab" or "Guatemalan." Mexican immigrants, however, toss around the term like tortillas over an open fire -- my mom, a native of a poor Mexican village, always warns me not to go out with chuntaras since "they dress bad, are dark and talk stupidly." And ain't that the truth?
Dear Mexican,
I'm 22. My question is: Why is it that I always get whistled at by Mexicans who are gardeners and in their late 40s? I don't do anything to attract their attention, and yet I can't walk past them or even drive by them without being hollered at. No amount of dirty looks deters them. What gives?
La Gringa
Why are old Mexican men the ones that gawk at young girls walking down the street, but you never see an old white man do the same?
White Eyes and Thighs
Why do Mexican men insist on hanging out of their truck windows and honking, whistling and catcalling at women who walk down the street? Do they know how incredibly disgusting it is to hear a "woo-hoo" and look to find a dirty gardener looking at us through his side-view mirrors? No more! MAKE IT STOP!!!
Whale Tale Mademoiselle
Dear Gabachas,
Public lechery amongst immigrant men isn't limited to Mexicans in America -- have you forgotten the Vikings, the Spaniards, Gauguin in Tahiti and study-abroad programs? Men pillaging foreign villages for their women is a time-honored tradition, maybe the foundation of civilization, so be happy Mexicans here are merely wagging their tongues and making kissing sounds rather than kidnapping you in the middle of the night and setting your hut on fire. These immigrants leave home, family and church to become agents rather than subjects of history, and the world moves forward as a result. Any man who breaks the shackles of propriety and chivalry and grabs his crotch at a gal is the type of immigrant we want, the type of immigrant that makes America great -- visionary, innovative, horny. Wolf-whistling Mexican men are our modern pioneers, and gabachas are their new frontier, their virgin soil.
Got a spicy question about Mexicans? Ask the Mexican at garellano@ocweekly.com. And those of you who do submit questions: include a hilarious pseudonym, por favor, or we'll make one up for you!
