Illustration by Mark DancyDear Mexican,
What's with Mexicans and their abuse of the car horn? Instead of getting out of the car and knocking on the door of someone's house, they use it as a doorbell, as an alarm clock to wake up their carpool buddy (and the neighborhood), as a toy for their kids who wait in the car while the driver runs in the storede volada. And last but certainly not least, instead of using the brakes.
Wondering Pocho in Fountain Valley
What's with all the horn-honking that Mexicans love to do when pulling up outside apartments and houses to pick up their friends? Don'tustedes have cell phones?
Gero in the Barrio
Dear Pocho y Gabacho,
You'd honk like a goose too, if you had cool horns like ours. Throughout the barrios of SanTana and Anaheim, you can hear us beep with the opening notes of “La Cucaracha,” Beethoven's “Fur Elise,” Usher's “Yeah!” and the overwrought '70s instrumental “Music Box.” My favorite is the melody gabachos know as “Shave and a haircut, two bits,” but which we Mexicans, in our infinite bawdiness, have transformed into “Chinga tu madre, cabron“, “Go fuck your mother, asshole.” Such specialty horns allow Mexicans to distinguish between an angry commuter and a produce truck, between the migra and the morning carpool. They are our Navajo code. As for your doorbell complaints, FV Pocho and Barrio Guero, let me put it this way: Would you leave your car in the middle of a barrio–where parking is as rare as a mold-free apartment, where cholos skulk behind bumpers ready to pounce on the first available coche–just to knock on your friend's door? Or would you punch out “The Mexican Hat Dance” on your pito?
Dear Mexican,
Isn't brown pride a P.C. adoption and morphing of white power?
Serapes Scare Me
Dear Gabacho,
True, Serapes. And that's why events like Hispanic Heritage Month, which ends this Saturday, are lame responses to centuries of gabacho oppression and exclusion. Hispanic Heritage Month is useful only to see how hilariously clueless gabacho administrators, newspaper editors–hell, the entire American power structure–still are about Latinos. Bake some pan dulce, throw in a salsa band, invite Edward James Olmos as a keynote speaker, and that's culture, right? Or run weepy profiles of Mexicans rising from nothing to barely something, as TheOrange County Register does during Hispanic Heritage Month, and that pleases those pesky Latinos who clamor for positive, accurate coverage in the press, que no?
What's worse is the litany of accomplishments recounted during Hispanic Heritage Month to show that Latinos are just like everyone else, but more so. Look–a Mexican astronaut! Golfer! Doctor! No gardeners here! And don't be surprised if you hear some Cal State Fullerton MEChA student state some really out-there claim, like that Thomas Alva Edison was Mexican, that the Aztec empire went as far north as Michigan because the state name sounds like Michoacan, and that Mexican women take it up the butt to protect their virginity. All those cultural-pride pendejadas get tiresome after a while because it's nothing more than pandering and assumptions. Ask Mexicans what theyre proud of, and they'll probably point to their shiny new Silverado.
The Mexican wont answer questions next week because hisgabacho editor wont allot any space in theWeeklys chido Best of OC issue. But do continue to send your spicy questions about Mexicans to ga*******@oc******.com. And those of you who do submit questions: include a hilarious pseudonym,por favor, or well make one up for you!
