Dear Mexican: I have a Chicana friend who comes from an upper-middle class family, goes to a prestigious PhD program and has never had to take out student loans or work a real job, but she is constantly complaining about how “oppressedâ€� she is. Examples she gives are seemingly trivial things, such as not being called on in class, a professor being mean to her one time, and not feeling “emotionally safe.â€� She even said I my questioning her micro-aggression stories was itself a micro-aggression! I don’t know what to make of it—hanging out with her is hard because I have to walk on eggshells constantly. I know Chicanos and Chicanas who come from objectively worse circumstances and have had way harder lives than she has, yet don’t act like the world is against them. Does she have a victim mentality?

Gringo Blanco

Dear Gabacho: We’ve got a name for people like that in Mexican Spanish—fresas. Strawberries, because they bruise easily. Okay, so the Mexican doesn’t know the actual etymology of the snobbish meaning of fresa, but makes sense, ¿qué no? Racism against Mexicans does exist in doctoral programs nationwide, and we shouldn’t assume that raza in rarified worlds don’t feel discrimination’s sting (just ask George P. Bush). But it seems like your pal, to use the old baseball phrase, was born on third base and go through life thinking she hit un triple. Tell her to work a day as a strawberry picker to know what the hard life really is. That said, Mexicans who suffer real shit and don’t complain aren’t somehow better than llorones—we’re Mexicans in a racist society, after all, not Jesus pinche Christ. And even He cried on the cross.

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I am currently incarcerated, and have a one-year subscription to a newspaper that carries your column. I am Chicano, and I’m a fan of your column. I just want to ask you a couple serious questions and I hope you can personally respond back. I’ve been reading up on Mexican history and I’m a little confused. So my first question is why did the Texas Revolution start in 1836 between Mexicans and Anglos? Secondly, how did the Battle of Texas lead to the Mexican-American War?

Pinto en La Pinta

Dear Homie in Prison: I usually don’t answer two preguntas in one shot, but I’ll make an exception for the homies in Chino. Besides, the answer is muy easy. The Texas Revolution started because Americans hate Mexicans. And the Mexican-American War happened because Americans hate Mexicans. And now you know why Donald Trump rescinded DACA. Oh, and #fucktrump.

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BUY THESE BOWTIES!: Enough negativity—let’s do an experiment! Now, more than ever, good Mexicans deserve our support. An ¡Ask a Mexican! fan runs La Moustache, a Los Angeles company that does chingón bowties, but is agüitado that more raza aren’t buying his handcrafted, classy creations. So show him what’s up! Visit lamoustachebt.com and place an order or 30. And this ain’t no payola—whenever the Mexican needs to wrap something around his neck for fresa parties, it’s always a cinto piteado tied in a Windsor knot.

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Dear Mexican: How can I get my new Mexican girlfriend to calm down about Trump and being deported? We safely live in a sanctuary city. I have no intention of just marrying her unless something horrible happened, but I want to help her out. She is a kind, rational human being that simply has bought into the fear-mongering that Trump is instilling in her. And, while a triple orgasm might make her feel temporary relief, how can I get her to realize that we are not in a place where she is going to get deported unless she blatantly breaks a serious law?

Good Gabacho Who Gives it Good

Dear Gabacho: Wow, you’re a special kind of pendejo. A sanctuary city status doesn’t mean shit to Trump or U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is threatening to cut federal funding to such cities. Sanctuary cities can’t stop la migra from picking up people for no other reason other than they’re undocumented. And the Mexican knows of cases where people were deported for riding their bike on the sidewalk. You aren’t Mexican or undocumented, and you’re obviously some deluded wimp whose gabachos privilege blinds him to his supposed love’s serious concerns. Are you sure you didn’t vote for Trump? I seriously hope your novia breaks up with you and finds a real hombre that doesn’t have his head up his culo. Finally, triple orgasm? The only girl you get off happens whenever download a clip from Pornhub.

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Over the years, I have worked with, and gone to college with Mexicans who were usually Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Latter Day Saints, and other Christian religions. However, about ten years ago, I was blessed to work with two Jewish Mexicans. What is the history of Jewish Mexican culture?

Goyim but Great

Dear Gabacho: A very long story short: Jews accompanied Hernán Cortés in his conquest of Mexico—indeed, the man who built his ships was the judio Hernando Alonso. He was also burned at the stake in 1528 for practicing Judaism, because Spanish Catholics were the ISIS of this day. Due to such terroristic ways, many Jews either hid their religion or moved to New Mexico, as far away from the Inquisition as possible. Flash-forward 500 years, and Mexico City now has a significant Jewish community, and Mexican Jews have long been accepted in the country’s upper circles, with the coolest one being celebrity chef Pati Jinich. But not all is kosher: as I wrote in one of my first columnas back in 2004, “For instance, when a Mexican thinks someone is a slob, we call the person a cochino marrano—a dirty Jew. And don’t believe your Spanish teacher when she pulls out the Webster’s and reads that marrano means “pig”—Webster’s doesn’t know mierda about Spanish etymology. “Marranoâ€� does mean pig but was also the term used to ridicule Jews who hid their beliefs in order to survive the Spanish Inquisition.â€� ¡Puro pinche parr!

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Dear Mexican: Why do so many Mexican women feel so jealous when other Mexican women achieve success? I have to deal with this all the time. Please explain.

A Successful Mexican Woman

Dear Pocha: Because cishet patriarchy—DUH.

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How do I get over my consciousness about being seen as a “sell-outâ€� for dating a white guy? I think if I was a receptionist, I’d feel less troubled, but I’m a professional and hate fitting into the stereotype of the successful Latina with the hyphenated last name. Is there anyway that a chola from East LA and a surfer from Malibu would not be seen as an odd couple?

Loca Pero No Naca

Dear Crazy but Not Trashy: You’re not a sell-out for dating gabachos; you’re a vendida for thinking you’re better than others because you’re a “professional.� And a secretary isn’t? Maybe the Malibu crowd think you’re a maid, and may the Eastlos crowd think your surfer is some hipster douchebag.

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Why have you all kept Astrid Hadad such a secret? I just saw a show about her, and for God’s sakes! A woman who has a huge set of tits made into a skirt? THIS woman really, really needs a bigger audience for her act. Does she ever come to El Norte? Could you ask? Please? She has a wit like a razor for EVERYONE. Pretty cool—if nothing else, get her name out as she is very cool.

Galloping Gorda the Pavement Crusher

Dear Gabacha: Haddad is a chingona, but there’s a bunch of similarly subversive mujeres in Mexican music and performance art, from the days of Lola Beltrán and Gloria Trevi through the late, great Jenni Rivera and Rita Guerrero of Santa Sabina. There’s more to Mexican female art that Frida Kahlo, gentle cabrones.

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My “Mexicanâ€� workmates get very excited to see go see Latin bands. (I say “Mexicanâ€� because some have been here so long they don’t speak Spanish well). These people put salsa on the jukebox whenever they get a chance. They clamor for Mexi-music at holiday parties. They seem to wrap themselves in the Mexican flag. I’ve seen their record collections, and there’s a bunch of classic rock and reggae—but, if it has Latin flavor, then they’re all over it. They even start speaking with accents. We’re talking post-grad degrees, third- or fourth-generation. Question: why can’t they motivate to see rock or reggae at free shows around town, but then get so easily excited about Latin bands?

Bruja in HB

Dear Huntington Beach Witch: Because free rock or reggae shows tend to vale madre. But I really don’t get your question. So you’re mad that assimilated Mexican-Americans like Mexican music? Why aren’t you mad at Italian-Americans for worshipping at the altar of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra? Or Southerners for wishing to see bluegrass remain as pure as a mountain spring in the Bluegrass? That’s right: because they’re not Mexican. To paraphrase the old Annie Get Your Gun song “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better�: Anything Americans can do, Mexicans can’t because we’re just illegal alien savages to them. And they wonder why we planned the Reconquista…

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Dear Mexican: I recently relocated from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and am longing for my Mexicans. As you know, in Los Angeles it is easy to find amazing Chicanas — whenever I wanted to meet beautiful, intelligent Mexican ladies, I would head to Main Street in Alhambra on any Thursday night and be in utter heaven. But I have not been able to get my bearings in Vegas. Do you have any insight into the Mexican social scene here, or can you offer some advice on where I should look? I would also be interested in learning some history about Mexicans in Las Vegas generally, and their current status out here.

Buscando a Mis Chicanas Desiertos

Dear Pocho: My cousin Raymond moved out to Vegas from La Puente about 20 years ago to find the good life, so you’re not looking hard enough. And once the Raiders relocate there, you’ll have your share of Silver and heinas forever more. But the Mexican only goes to Vegas to speak every summer at the Latino Youth Leadership Conference, (which takes young raza and forges them into future leaders), so I’m not the right hombre to answer your pregunta. So I forwarded it to the homie that first invited me, Edgar Flores, has been state assemblymember for Nevada’s 28th District since 2014—BOOM. Take it away, Assembly -chingón!

“More than 30 percent of the Vegas population is Latino/a—I’m guessing you’re spending too much time in Summerlin or Anthem and not enough in North and East Vegas if you don’t see beauties wrapped in bronze skin,â€� Flores writes. “The Clark County School District is nearly 50 percent Latino…seriously, vato, where you been looking? Whole Foods? Also, LV residents are so tired of the LA takeover so they keep all their spots hidden, but I got the info on their “hideouts.â€� If you’re looking for a quickie hit up, Blue Martin on Thursdays, Firefly on Fridays, or Señor Frogs on Saturdays—at all three spots, locals get down to spiced-up music. If you’re trying to keep it straight paisa, then weekends at the Broadacres Marketplace is your spot: listen to live banda and norteño music, buy some tools, eat mariscos, or open a small business—it’s all there. Seriously, it’s all there! Intellectual Chicanas are either kicking ass in their professions or at UNLV. UNLV in 2012 was designated a Hispanic Serving Institution—so you’ll see so many mujeres with a book, you’ll think you are at your abuelita’s house on a Sunday morning during her comadre bible readings. Good luck, perdido!â€�

Gracias, Assembly chingón Flores! And raza: He’s one of the good ones. Let’s help get him to higher office, ¿qué no?

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Soon-to-Be Immigrant

Why is it that Mexicans pile into the front seat of a truck even when there is a back seat? I have seen this many times and I don’t understand why they can’t open the back door and sit back there. Do they enjoy sitting so close together? Is that why they also stand so close to you in lines at the grocery store?

Backseat I Take Cuz He Echoed “Shotgun�

Dear BITCHES: The familia that smushes into the front seat of a 1979 Ford F150 Supercab together, Reconquistas the United States together.

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Dear Mexican: I’m a 23-year-old Latina attending a Texas university and taking a class that is centered on Latino culture and history. I’m a first-generation Tex-Mex kid, and lately, all of the documentaries and other coursework have been making me feel some type of way—angry, sad and overall confused, for lack of better phrasing. I don’t know how to handle these feelings, and it is making me more introspective about the Latino/Mexican part of my identity—as if I didn’t already have enough issues there. I don’t want to overthink it, and I don’t want to always wonder how people perceive me because of my background. But I don’t know how to feel about what I am learning and if what I am feeling is okay. Did you ever go through something like this type of identity crisis? And any advice on how to feel/handle it?

Down In Denton

DEAR MUJER: Was I ever confused about my ethnic identity? Absolutely—tell your Chicano Studies professor to assign Orange County: A Personal History to ustedes, and you’ll get the carne asada of the matter. But your situation deserves a more insightful perspective than mine, so I turn the columna over to one of my bosses: Alexandro José Gradilla, chairman of the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at Cal State Fullerton, where I [used to be] an adjunct-at-large.

“Dear Iztaccíhuat: You are experiencing ‘Chicano Studies Rage 101,'” Gradilla writes. “Here is a synopsis of why you are feeling the way you do. After more than a decade in a K-12 school system that never really broached or addressed issues of institutional racism, most students of color coming out of high school would probably answer ‘no’ if asked whether they ever experienced racism. Here is the double problem: Most students have not learned anything about ‘their’ group. More important, they have not been taught about institutional racism. So when taking a college-level history or sociology course or, as you experienced, an ethnic-studies class in which systemic or structural racism analyses is par for the course, they get what happened to you. A sudden flood of cold, hard facts connected with theories of racism—then BAM! You are forever aware of the nature of social inequality in the United States.

“You ‘see’ how unfair and obscene racism is. Racism—and not individual prejudice or bigotry, but an embedded system of exclusion and denigration—is a profoundly ridiculous and irrational system. Whether you are learning about the Mendez, et al. v. Westminster case or the Felix Longoria affair and all within the short confines of a quarter or semester—even the most complacent coconuts are overwhelmed and bothered! The rage is famously captured by the quintessential Chicano movement poem ‘I am/Yo soy Joaquin’ written by Rodolfo ‘Corky’ Gonzales.

“So, my little brown Aztec volcano, your pending explosion within the classroom is nothing new. Just remember: Use your new knowledge to heal, not to hate.”

Awesome job, profe jefe! I’ll add just one thing: While it’s okay to feel angry, never let the other side get the better of your anger, as I’ll show with the next question. . . .

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DEAR MEXICAN: Does your cesspool homeland of Mexico allow illegals to break the law and sneak in? Hell, no—but I guess it’s okay for the USA to allow it for you and your deadbeat wetback cousins. Go fuck yourself—and I am sure this is not the first time you’ve heard that from a fed-up USA taxpayer who is sick of you parasite moochers from down south. Clean up your land if you want a good life. Don’t ride our coattails, you damn losers.

Klein In Van Nuys

DEAR GABACHO: Parasitic moochers riding coattails? Olla, meet hervidor. Or, in English: can’t wait for your beautiful brown grandchildren to take Chicano Studies 101!

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