News>Ask a Mexican

DEAR MEXICAN: How come you call yourself a Mexican? By definition, you're a Chicano, not a Mexican. A Mexican is a person who was born and raised in Mexico, not beautiful Orange County. A Mexican is a person who is proud of his country and appreciates and respects the Mexican flag, even though he left […]

DEAR MEXICAN: I recently saw a picture of you in a newspaper article. I was quite shocked. You appear to have more of a European skin tone. However, since your relatives lived in Mexico in the past 200 years, I guess you think of yourself as a Mexican. I tend to think Mexican-looking people have more of […]

DEAR READERS: As usual, I turn over a December edición of my column each year to new Chicano-Mexican books you should stuff into a tamale leaf and give to folks so they have something to unwrap. While 2016 was a horrible year politically, the Santo Niño de Atocha saved it with a lot of amazing […]

The bloodstained concrete has long been scrubbed clean at Pearson Park in Anaheim where a February Ku Klux Klan rally turned into a brawl, but ripples from all the madness are still being felt. William Hagen, the West Coast Grand Dragon for Loyal White Knights of the KKK, is currently locked up on felony assault […]

DEAR MEXICAN: Sooooo . . . your boy René Redzepi is moving to Mexico. I'm curious to hear your thoughts. From Lagos DEAR LOCO: Unless the acclaimed Danish chef behind the world-acclaimed Noma is into tamborazo and Antonio Aguilar, he ain't my compa. But the Scandinavian very well could be nowadays: It was recently announced […]

Para leer esta historia en español, vaya a "En los últimos 20 años, un residente de Santa Ana ha mantenido la lengua de los aztecas viva." "Okay, let's start with practice!" Davíd Vázquez says in Spanish to a dozen or so students seated in the basement choir room of the Episcopal Church of the Messiah […]

Translated by Scott Sink To read this story in English, go to "For the Past 20 Years, a Santa Ana Man Has Kept the Language of the Aztecs Alive." "Bueno, ¡empecemos con práctica!" dice David Vázquez en español a una docena o más de estudiantes sentados en el salón del coro en el sótano de […]

DEAR MEXICAN: What's up with pochos and their disrespect for their origins? I'm a Mexican, born and raised in Mexico, a proud chilango, and, well, I gotta know why do pochos—Mexican-Americans or whatever—try to make our reputation as bad as possible by acting all gangster and drug dealer, like a lazy, ignorant, person? I mean, […]

Cuban exiles greeted news of Fidel Castro's death this weekend with jubilant celebrations from the streets of Miami to Echo Park. They danced on Castro's grave, seeing him as nothing more than a brutal dictator forever more than a few bags shy of a ten million-ton sugar harvest. But while Cubans in the United States […]

DEAR MEXICAN: We have Mexican teenagers in my apartment building who are chronic troublemakers. My question to you is: Why do Mexicans break the rules, refuse to be corrected and harass us senior citizens? Why is it always the Mexicans who are the worst? Is it in their culture? Or are these just uneducated low-lifes? […]

DEAR MEXICAN: Math problem: If there are 20 Mexicans, 20 Indians, 20 Chinese, 20 Puerto Ricans, 20 Blacks and one white person in a room, then how many people are there in the room whose identity is used as a benchmark to establish the identities of the rest of the people in the room? (Hint: […]

In the wake of Donald Trump's presidential victory, the Southern Poverty Law Center has documented hundreds of hate crimes committed in his name. The nonprofit admitted a lot of them were anecdotal, and many involved mere harassment instead of actual assaults, but it's still indicative of a new, disturbing era in which idiots emboldened by […]

“We reject, the President-elect!” “We reject, the President-elect! Hundreds of protesters marched in downtown SanTana yesterday afternoon denouncing President-Elect Donald Trump and his incoming hate regime. People gathered near the 4th Street Market and walked to the Old Orange County Courthouse for a rally. Organized by two young Latinas, the action brought together about 350 […]

DEAR MEXICAN: I found your 2009 column about Mexican men and spousal abuse, and my question is: Is there any help for this to ever end? I've been with a Mexican man, who is also an abuser of alcohol, although it has slimmed down some. He gets angry out of the blue and starts hitting […]

Keep refreshing this post from now until the end of Election Day for the best damn coverage in Orange County, period. Latest updates will always be at the top—enjoy! Oh, and #fucktrump. 2:42 A.M: Lemme sleep, and I'll give you something good, m'kay? Too faded for the obvious reasons #fucktrump 11:10 P.M. As I'm waiting for […]

In this week's dead-tree edition, we offered readers an anti-endorsement list—Orange County candidates whom no one in their right mind should vote for and should do everything to defeat. People loved the idea, but asked for guidance in who they should vote for. That's a bit of a problem for us. As we stated before, […]

You know what really grinds our gears at the Weekly? When people think they’re justified to speak on behalf of entire communities—especially when it comes to Latinos and the Poseidon desalination project. Especially when said spokespeople are onetime legit leaders who now come off as lame, out-of-tune dinosaurs. The latest such bout of vendidismo happened earlier this […]

DEAR MEXICAN: Why is it that even though we Latinos have similar backgrounds (Indian-Spanish) across America, there is a lack of unity among us here in the USA? We could be a powerhouse during election times and definitely obtain a friendlier immigration deal. El Peruano DEAR CHOLO: I usually only answer preguntas about Mexicans, but […]

A photo posted by Collective Ink Gallery (@collectiveinkgallery) on Oct 30, 2016 at 5:35pm PDT For as long as people have tattooed, death and the afterlife have been steady subject matter for tattoo artists. From skulls and reapers to angels and demons, the tattoo world has always had an understandable obsession with death—particularly given that […]

DEAR MEXICAN: ¿Por que no hay un pinche líder entre nosotros o de nosotros los mexicanos? Para que tuviera los tanates bien puestos y hablara frente al congreso y les dijera sus verdades a los hipócritas políticos. ¿Será que “nuestros lideres” son unos miedosos o vendidos? No hay uno solo (solo el Chapulín Colorado) que […]