Q&A with a Mexican

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

By Richard Anderson

Gustavo Arellano, the Santa Ana, Calif., native who writes the spicy “¡Ask A Mexican!” column for the OC Weekly and about two dozen other alternative papers across the country (from the Dallas Observer to this, your beloved hometown weekly), refers to himself as America’s piñata.

“You can smack me around and I’ll give you the goods on Mexicans,” the 28-year-old son of Mexican immigrants said, “but the warning is I’ll hit you right back.”
Or he calls himself an academic pretender: “I write about a lot of the subjects that these academics are writing about or examining,” he said, “but I do it in a newspaper that’s read by many more people – and weekly.”

But mostly, he calls himself a satirist. His column, which reaches an estimated 1.3 million readers each week, has drawn accusations of racism and vulgarity. But, Arellano says, his often outrageous responses to the questions readers send him about the customs and mating habits of Our Neighbors to the South are meant to shine a bright light on prickly Mexican-American relations, to poke holes in the stereotypes, and, ultimately, to deflate them.

Here at Planet Jackson Hole, we’ve run “¡Ask A Mexican!” since October 2006. As is apparently typical, we have received a broad mix of letters in response, some declaring it brilliant, others declaring it hateful.

The release of Arellano’s brand-spanking-new book of “¡Ask A Mexican!” will no doubt only inflame passions, but we thought it posed the perfect opportunity to interview Arellano, who, in addition to writing his column is also an investigative reporter for the OC Weekly and its food critic. “Yeah, I’m a typical Mexican,” he quipped. “I work three jobs.”

Don’t worry: We’ve also included this week’s “¡Ask A Mexican!” column. Find it in its usual place in our satiric back pages.

Planet Jackson Hole: Tell me the story of this column and its success.
Gustavo Arellano: The column started in November of 2004 after my editor was driving down Main Street in the city of Santa Ana, where the OC Weekly is located. Santa Ana by some accounts is the most Latino big city in the United States.

It’s a Little Mexico. So, he sees a billboard on Main Street and it has a Spanish-language DJ who’s wearing a Viking helmet and his eyes are crossed – really goofy billboard – and he comes back and asks me who it is, and I explain to him the guy’s El Piolín [meaning “Tweety Bird”] … who led a lot of immigrants’ rights marches last year … My editor told me, “That guy seems as if you could ask him a question about Mexicans and he’ll be able to answer it.

Why don’t you start a column called ‘Ask a Mexican’?” I thought it was a goofy idea, but I took him up on it. It would be a one-time-only joke column in an attempt to satirize the anti-Mexican sentiment that’s so prevalent down here in Orange County specifically, but in the United States in general.

So, I wrote the first question. “Dear Mexican, why do Mexicans call white people gringos?” And my response was, “Dear Gabacho, Mexicans don’t call gringos gringos, only gringos call gringos gringos, and Mexicans call gringos gabachos.” And we published it and we included the logo – the big fat Mexican, “Infamous Mexican” – and the reaction just was instantaneous and the column just skyrocketed in both controversy and popularity ever since.

PJH: The reaction was both good and bad?
GA: Yes, half of the people liked it, half of the people hated it. And it split across ethnic lines, so half of white people said, “Oh my god, you’re hurting the poor Mexicans.” The other half said, “Oh my god, you’re so funny.” Same thing with the Mexicans: “You’re hurting our race,” our raza, as it were, and the other half said, “This is the funniest thing I’ve ever read.”
We expected that. What we didn’t expect was for people to call our bluff and start sending us questions about Mexicans.

PJH: That was spontaneous?
GA: Yes. Literally, the first day the column hit the streets … we were already getting letters, people asking questions about Mexicans. We didn’t expect that. We thought people would think the column so outrageous and so obviously a joke that no one would take us up on the offer. Once they did … we figured, “We touched a nerve, let’s see how far we can take it, let’s start answering questions.”

PJH: What nerve do you think you touched?
GA: Since the beginning of this country, immigration has always been a sensitive subject, a divisive subject, so whenever you write about immigration, you will receive feedback from both sides, either them calling you a Mexican apologist or racist against Mexicans or whatever.

… So, we expected to touch that nerve, especially with the tone of the column, which was so irreverent, so outrageous and so satirical. I think people were disturbed that we would take such a flippant approach to the subject … but also some people thought it was a refreshing take. They said, “Oh my God, this is satirizing both those on the left and those on the right. It’s great.”

… People who appoint themselves the wards of those poor Mexicans, that’s what I would call those guilty liberals who think the column is offensive or whatever. … It’s always outrage at first followed by angry letters, then, once people actually start reading the column for a couple of weeks, they understand what I’m trying to do and enjoy it. Even if they hate the column, they’ll still read it every week just to get outraged.

PJH: There are all sorts of things going on in the news recently that dovetail with this subject, and it’s not just recent – there’s always been this touchy conversation about race taking place in this country.
GA: I think what’s unique about the subject … is that Mexicans have always presented this question mark to Americans ... Immigrants believe in the myth of the melting pot, that all immigrants come to this country and eventually become Americans.

It also happens with Mexicans … but the American mind does not want to assimilate Mexicans or does not want to accept that fact. I call it “Mexican exceptionalism” … and I understand why there is that mind-set. We share a border with Mexico, we’ve been in two official wars and a lot of skirmishes … and Mexican immigration is now approaching historic levels. So there’s always going to be the question of, “What will Mexicans do to this country? What is our future with so many Mexicans in this country?” …

PJH: Do you have an answer to that debate? Is amnesty the answer? What would you like to see happen?
GA: I’m very biased on this issue. My dad was an illegal immigrant. He came to this country in the trunk of Chevy in 1968 along with three other men. They each paid two hippie girls $50 to cross the border.

My, how the times have changed! Now you have to pay $6,000. He married my mother, who was a legal immigrant, and got his papers, but a lot of my aunts and uncles, they were also illegal immigrants who got amnesty through the 1986 amnesty. All of these former illegal immigrants are now proud citizens who have put their children through college and really made success stories out of themselves

… How can this country possibly lose if you get 12 million people like my father?
That said, these immigrants need to want to join this country. They need to want to better their country. They can’t be allowed to live off of welfare – no one should be able to live off welfare, for that matter.

I think, since they did break the law, there should be some penalty for that, whether it’s paying back taxes or paying a fee. … I don’t think there should be blanket amnesty – in other words, just legalize everyone, no fees, no nothing, I don’t believe in that – but I do think that we should take steps to legalize those people who want to join the fabric of the country.

PJH: Going back to racism and language, specifically in your column, I think a lot of people respond to some of the slurs and the outrageous – and outrageously funny – things that you say that are just asking people to say, “Oh, that’s racist, how can you get away with that?”
GA: The column is satire. It’s based in fact. I do the research as any good reporter will do, but it is a satirical column. When you play in the realm of satire you’re allowed more liberties, and I take those liberties all the way. … I don’t make up those questions.

That’s a common misconception that people have. The only question I made up was that first one. Everything since then has been written by people, and mostly by strangers. … So, the slurs and the curses that are in the questions I didn’t make up, but since I do receive those, I’ll play that game as well, and I use the slurs and the curse words or whatever.

… Satire’s goal is to be as outrageous as possible to shine a light on a particular truth. I think that by being outrageous, by being sometimes vulgar, I can really shine a light on the American mind and what it really thinks about Mexicans.

PJH: I have noticed that some of your responses are quite researched, referring to Octavio Paz and to professors in your area and scholarly research. Have you learned anything about race relations in writing this column?
GA: I’ve learned so much about it. I’ve learned … just how fascinated Americans are with Mexicans. The fact that this column exists, that’s pretty amazing. The American mind is still so juvenile when it comes to thinking about Mexicans, that it does have so many questions.

… I don’t have, like, questions in my mind brewing about white people or African Americans so much. I don’t think, “Why do African Americans do this, this and this.” … It’s almost as if people don’t think Mexicans are human and that they’re such curious creatures that they have a question about Mexicans. … It’s just fascinating to me that people have so many questions.

PJH: It’s like anthropology as opposed to just human beings.
GA: Exactly. And in the United States, when we study anthropology or sociology, it’s usually to study groups that are outside our quote-unquote norm. So the fact that this column does employ so many parts of those disciplines says that the Mexican is truly an alien in America and always has been and probably always will be.

PJH: Is racism an inherent part of being American?
GA: Not so much racism, more bigotry. I think it’s an inherent part of human society. All across the world, people don’t like foreigners. … I think that’s the ultimate foundation of human society: a distrust of those out there.

Obviously, here in the United States, racism has played a big part in the formation of this country, from slavery to manifest destiny, which included Mexicans, of course to the present day. Xenophobia: It’s as American as apple pie.

PJH: So, to a certain extent, instead of denying it and instead of fighting it or trying to cleanse every mind of racist thoughts, it makes more sense to embrace it and to do so with humor.
GA: Well, not embrace racism, but embrace the reality of racism, that’s what I would say. I have problems with political correctness in the sense of we shouldn’t talk about racist, sexist, homophobic thoughts. When you try to deny the reality of something, it just grows. It grows in power.

Al Qaeda, for instance: Our government really tried to deny that there was any power there, and look what happened. The same thing with hate. It’s my belief that the best way to combat hate is to shine a light on it. The best way to combat stereotypes … is to discuss them and poke fun at them.

Stereotypes are nothing more than gross characterizations of a truth, and people give them so much power, and yet these stereotypes are frequently based on flimsy reasoning.

PJH: Is integration a liberal fantasy or to what degree is it a realistic goal?
GA: Integration is inevitable in this country. Again, take my family’s history: My dad was an illegal immigrant. My mom, she came to this country when she was 12, but she had to drop out of school when she was in ninth grade to pick strawberries +

… They both could speak English, but they lived their lives in Spanish. ... When I entered kindergarten, all I spoke was Spanish. Obviously, now my English is much better than my Spanish, and my father, the former illegal immigrant turned citizen, he’s against illegal immigration. He says it’s ruining this country.

If that’s not assimilation, I don’t know what is. ... My generation of friends, we all came from the same background; parents who were immigrants ... a lot of them illegal, ... and here we are: We’re as American as nachos.

PJH: What kind of environment did you grow up in?
GA: My parents have always been working class. The house that I was born in was one bedroom, a kitchen – it was like a tiny little shack. My father is a truck driver. My mom was a tomato canner until 1997 when she was laid off.

So, my parents were able to save enough money to get a better house – not a mansion by any sense of the definition, but a three-bedroom, two-bath house, you know just a cookie-cutter house. So, growing up, I can’t say that times were tough, they were not luxuriant by any means, but I never lacked for anything.

… We lived in a Mexican household. We were expected to work hard. There really were no expectations of education at first … In fact, when I told my dad I wanted to attend college, he said, “Why would you want to do that? Join me as a truck driver.”

But after I graduated, he saw the value of college, and so my younger siblings – I have two sisters and a brother, I’m eldest – they were all expected to go to college.

One of them already graduated with her teaching credential, another one is a sophomore in college, and my youngest brother, he’s you’re typical American sophomore slacker in high school. … So, we considered ourselves a Mexican household, but as children, we were living in the United States, so we became American, whether my parents wanted it to happen or not.

PJH: How does that typical working-class childhood color your voice or affect what you say or how you say things?
GA: Again, since both of my parents were immigrants, poor immigrants, who came here with nothing, and then one of them illegal, for them to have crafted such a great life in this country, that shows me that anyone can do that, but you have to have motivation.

I think my upbringing has affected me with a libertarian approach to immigration, which is, allow people to come in, but people should be reliant on themselves. My parents never got on food stamps, never got on welfare. They did none of that, they did it all on their own. If my parents could do it, anyone can. And if you don’t do it, it’s not because of racism or discrimination.

It’s because of your own laziness and stupidity. Some people, reporters when they ask me about that and I respond with that, they say, “Wow, those are really conservative views,” and I say, “If you want to call it that, sure, but I really do believe that.”

PJH: It sounds like you’ve been enjoying some great success. You’ve been on “The Colbert Report” and I imagine lots of interviews. You’re having fun?
GA: … It’s fun, being able to have a national platform – a somewhat national platform – and to talk about the issues of the day and to give my perspective on it. Whether people agree with it or not, that’s not the question.

I enjoy doing it and I’ll do it as long as I’m not bored. I answer two questions a week every week, and if no one sent me any more questions, I’d have enough material to last me at least six years. I have 145 pages of questions I have yet to answer. I really don’t think I’ll ever be bored.

PJH: How do you choose what you’re going to respond to each week?
GA: If all I ever talked about was immigration or sex, it’d get boring really quickly. So I need to vary up the topics.

One week I’ll say. “OK, let me write about language this week or food. Let me get a really funny question. Let me get a really racist question. Let me get a question from an African-American.”

… Ultimately, the questions I answer sooner rather than later are the ones that are really really remarkable or say something or, the way I describe it, if it makes me laugh out loud, I’ll answer that one sooner rather than later. People who send in questions, I always respond to them and say, “I’ll answer your question in the coming weeks,” but then sometimes, since I have such a backlog, people will write back and say, “Oh, you’re a coward, you didn’t answer my questions.” And my response is, unless you’re an illegal immigrant, you have to wait in line like everyone else.



Courtesy Photo

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