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!
DEAR MEXICAN: How come there are a bunch of fair-skinned European-looking guys running Mexico? When I am in Mexico, I see them having power lunches in fine restaurants, driving Beemers, and escorting absolutely breathtaking women with long legs and high cheekbones. Who are these guys? How can I become one of them? Okay, the last question is silly, but . . .
Chico Amante
DEAR GABACHO: Mexico has had a full-blooded Indian (Benito Juarez), a half-Mixtec (Porfirio Diaz), an Afro-Mexican (Vicente Guerrero) and many mestizos as presidents, and a Lebanese-Mexican (Carlos Slim) is its richest man; the United States de Gabachos has had one negrito, a Dutch cabrón, and a mick serve as president in a cavalcade of Caucasians. European power ¿qué?
DEAR MEXICAN: What is up with the broken-down coche in the front yard of almost all Mexicans and the rose bushes? Why the rose bushes? Do you get your Mexican card revoked if you do not fulfill these apparent criteria to be Mexican?
Pocho From Palmdale
DEAR WAB: The car is because the cousin who knows how to fix radiators needs to repair his first; the roses are in homage to the Virgin of Guadalupe, whom the legend goes ordered the Indian (another Mexi who runs Mexico!) Juan Diego to show skeptical Spanish padres proof of her existence. Juan Diego gathered rose petals in his cloak and dumped them in front of the culero clergy only to find an imprint of la morenita on it. Let's see an English garden do that.
DEAR MEXICAN: I came to this country from Mexico with my parents when I was 4 years old; I'm now 22. For some reason, my parents didn't try to file for papers for themselves when the process was as easy as making a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. I'm attending community college at Santa Ana College; as you know, I have to pay a million times more because of my residential status. But when I first heard about this DREAM ACT, I thought it could be my savior, financially. Because of that same issue, I'm only taking two classes this fall semester, and it STILL totaled up to more than $400 with books and all. What exactly would the DREAM ACT mean if it did pass for students such as myself? What/who needs to make the MAJOR, FINAL decision for it to become a reality? What's the status of it at this point? And do YOU think it will be passed any time soon—or ever? Thank you.
Dreaming My Life Away
DEAR SECULAR SAINT: Your astronomical community-college fees are a result of bonehead administrators and largely independent from the question of citizenship. And I'll tell you and your fellow Dreamers the same thing I've been telling ustedes for years about your plight: keep the faith. Although the future seems hopeless, look at all the progress that has been made in just the past couple of years: the coming out of the shadows by so many undocumented youths, unafraid about pendejo politicians. The flowering of amazing artwork by Dreamers such as Julio Salgado, the Mexican's former intern whose posters have drawn national acclaim and are at nearly every Dreamer rally. The pushing into the national debate about the issue. Sure, Know Nothings will try their damnedest to stop Dreamers and other undocumented folks from ever attaining citizenship, but the war is already won; it's just the rest of the country that's now realizing this. Again: keep the faith.
