Dear Readers: Siempre, the wisest words that appear in this column come from ustedes, y the following two cartas prove this maxim. The first one addresses my year-end column, in which a working-class gabacho insisted his people apapachan a Mexicans mucho:
Dear Mexican: Half-Mexican here. I was fortunate enough to catch your column while I was visiting for the holidays. I have a comment in regards to [the gabacho whose letter was signed] Sick of All of You. He said, “No other country baby-sits Americans the way Americans baby-sit Mexicans.” I would have to disagree. I’ve been living in Spain for the past seven months as an English teacher, and he is greatly mistaken. All of Europe—and practically the entire world—caters to Americans. The international business language is English. Almost all signs are posted in the native language of the country and English. I’m ashamed that our country sees it as a burden to learn or tolerate another language. A majority of the world speaks English as their second language in order to cater to the American tourists and business industry. I just wanted to share this from my foreign-living experience. The world caters to us, the U.S.; I think we can spare a few bus-stop translations.
Life In the Afternoon
The following letter is a bit more critical, concerning a “Best of” I ran for the Jan. 7 edición of my column, in which a white woman wants to calm down her wab paramour:
Dear Mexican: I couldn’t believe the advice you gave Enamorada Gabacha: “Nothing says I love you, nothing says, ‘Welcome to America’ like an old-school blowjob.” Maybe so, but “an old-school blowjob” is also an excellent way of spreading STDs. To be sure, transmitting HIV through oral sex is rather rare—but it has been known to happen. However, syphilis and gonorrhea are different stories. Gonorrhea, I might add, is particularly worrisome because certain strains of this bacteria are becoming increasingly immune to all known antibiotics. It’s extremely irresponsible to advise an “old-school blowjob” without also advising old-school protection, such as condoms.
Trojan Travieso
Well, DUH. But Enamorada Gabacha was already seriously involved with her hombre—this wasn’t a one-night stand or a midnight run to the border. I’d assume and hope anyone who gets intimately involved with a person will first have a discussion about each other’s sex life before doing the deed, up to and including sharing STD-test results—but if I put in a public-service announcement like that, I’d be treading on the terrain of Savage Love. And I don’t want that mariposa messing with my pesos. . . .
And now, a question:
Dear Mexican: I was under the impression that Mexico actually had a LARGER middle class than most Latin American nations, consisting of doctors and lawyers, among all sorts of other professions. Mexico may have a far greater problem with poverty than the U.S., but compared to its southern neighbors, it’s relatively bourgeois. Do you know if there is any truth to my supposition?
Tío Moneybags
Dear Gabacho: You’re correcto—in a way. The World Bank’s 2008 country rankings on gross national income per capita list Mexico as tops in Latin America, but an IMD International survey puts Mexico as the país with the largest percentage of its population (22.1 percent) below the median income line. Taken together, these studies suggest rampant social stratification. (Número 3 on that list? Los Estados Unidos, with 17 percent of nosotros making less than the middle-class—so much for our superiority!) A 2006 BusinessWeek article estimated 40 percent of Mexicans were in the middle class, and that really isn’t surprising. “All sorts of other professions?” Raza, repeat after me: MEXICO IS A NORMAL COUNTRY. Too many narco-killings, for sure, and too little social mobility, but it’s firmly in the bottom rungs of the First World—and definitely no Guatemala.
MEET THE MEXICAN! The Mexican will talk about the history of Mexican Anaheim with the Anaheim Historical Society at the Loara Elementary School Auditorium, 1601 W. Broadway, Anaheim, (714) 774-2477. Tues., 7 p.m.
REMEMBER, READERS: Start asking me questions on my YouTube channel, youtube.com/askamexicano. The bigger the sombrero, the better!
Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net or myspace.com/ocwab. Or write to him at: Gustavo Arellano, P.O. Box 1433, Anaheim, CA 92815-1433. Find him on Facebook and Twitter!
