Living in southern California predisposes you to an instant cultural immersion in Mexican Latino culture whether you like it or not, the way Miami gives you a leg up on frijoles negro, plantainos fritos and cafe con leche that will take the finish off your teeth's enamel.
REUTERS/Toby Melville
A reporter in Orange County, Gustavo Arellano, has built a growing readership hipping the non Mexican populace to ask the important questions, like why do Mexicans refuse to use a level and proper construction tools when renovating a home, or why chilis must accompany every meal. Arellano has an answer for you.
Tim Gaynor for Yahoo news interviewed Arellano, and uncovered the secrets to his success.
Arellano discusses the Mexican prediliction for transvestites, female wrestlers, dwarfs and Chevys. There is an enormous difference culturally from a muy rapido East Coast Puerto Rican and Cuban to the slower paced, death obsessed Mexican, even their spoken Spanish is slower in delivery.
Think Cantinflas versus Cesar Romero, or Selena versus Shakira (yes, I know Shakira is Colombian, but they're snobby like Argentinians and Cubans too.)
The "Ask a Mexican!" column is syndicated in more than a score of weekly newspapers across the country.
Gustavo Arellano and his editor at the OC Weekly in Orange County, southern California tell Gaynor the column "started out as a prank in 2004."
Allegedly the readership is over a million people from California to New York each week. Radio appearances and a book deal have followed for Arellano.
"It started off as a joke. It was supposed to be just a satirical take on xenophobia against Mexicans and it just exploded," Arellano said to Gaynor, telling the genesis of the column.
"We knew people would be outraged ... whenever you talk about immigration in the media, there is always a response. What we didn't expect was for people to send in questions," he said to Gaynor.
Arellano tells Gaynor that no question is off limits, and faces even the most racist and xenophobic queries with an equal does of humor and forthrightness.
source
USA
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