DEAR MEXICAN: My hometown of El Paso is getting a new AAA baseball team. The owning group just announced the name: The El Paso Chihuahuas. The reasons given were the origins of the dog and the city's location in the Chihuahua desert and that it was family-friendly. Many in this city are saying the name is offensive, while others (myself included) love the name, as it follows the team name protocol/trends of minor-league baseball. Plus, the logo seems pretty awesome. So, in your most Mexican opinion, who is right?
Getting Drunk at Chope's
DEAR WAB: Neither. For one, smarty-art Mexicans need to own the Chihuahua as a fine metaphor for our raza instead of something shameful. As I wrote back in 2008, the perritos are “quintessentially Mexican: Napoleonic in complex, usually brown but available in all colors, maligned by gabachos as puny runts but secretly ferocious and smart, and bearers of muchos, muchos babies.” If Huskies (University of Washington), Salukis (Southern Illinois University), Terriers (Boston U), pinche Scotties (Agnes Scott College) and far too many bulldogs to mention can get athletic fame and glory, why not Chihuahuas? On the other hand, the owners of the San Diego Padres affiliate planning to set up shop in Chuco named their team the Chihuahuas specifically for the publicity, so shame on them for their Hispandering. Besides, both sides are not getting it correcto: The team should be called El Paso Doubles, not only for the extra-base hit, but also in honor of a double order at the legendary Chico's Tacos chain. Now THAT would be chingón.
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DEAR MEXICAN: What is with the nerve-fraying multiple sound sources required to operate a Mexican restaurant? The jukebox is hawking Shakira, Juanes or some other current hairdo; the overhead sound system continues to pump day-old Juan Gabriel; there is a boom box blasting anonymous ranchera from the kitchen; and at least one television is spewing hysterical telenovelas or hysterical soccer matches—to no viewer.
Tacos Yes, Trumpets No
DEAR GABACHO: It's nerve-fraying only to precious gabachos such as yourself—we Mexis can compartmentalize all the different sounds just fine. Don't like music with your Mexican food? Tough tamales and tubas, tonto.
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DEAR MEXICAN: I had been married to my Mexican wife for a while when my father-in-law, Adolph, one day says, “I bet an alemán like you probably wants to know why my name is Adolph.” He told me that because the California Mexicans from days of old and the rebels from Mexico wanted to take the Southwest back from the United States, and since the Germans asked Mexico to invade America during World War I, maybe if the Mexicans supported Hitler, he would help them liberate California! To me, that kind of made sense, but I had a different question. “Why do all Mexicans drive Fords?” He looked at me like I was a stupid gringo, which I am, and told me, “I thought you knew history; didn't Henry Ford support Hitler before the war?” So what about this central California Mexican man's story?
El Gringo de Sangre Meclador
DEAR GABACHO OF MIXED BLOOD: Your cuñado was fucking with you. Hitler was just a lowly soldier in World War I, when the Zimmerman Telegram he was referring to was proposed. And everyone knows why Mexicans love Fords: Enrique's hiring of Mexicans during Ford's Golden Age (“far more than any other Detroit-area carmaker,” according to Recasting the Machine Age: Henry Ford's Village Industries) was mucho appreciated, God bless his anti-Semitic heart.
