Ask A Mexican 4/23/08

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

By Gustavo Arellano

Dear Readers: The paperback version of my book is out in stores now, cheap enough so that even a Guatemalan can afford it. Buy, por favor! Now, on to the preguntas…

Dear Mexican: Lately, I’ve been hearing how punks and metalheads in Mexico are trying to beat up emos because it’s been said emos makes Mexican culture look bad. As a metalhead, I support this because I don’t see the point in being emo since they are very sensitive and guys dress like girls, but I still believe everyone has the right to be whatever they decide to be, no matter how bad it seems to people. What’s your perspective on this issue—do you think it’s a good thing or it is a bad thing? And do you agree that the emo trend is a poison to the Mexican culture?
- Mosh ‘Til You Die

Dear Wab: The emo riots that have spread across Mexico for the past month have been a source of joy and frustration for the Mexican. On one mano - as I told Wired reporter Alexis Madrigal for his fine story on the madness - I’m loving the clusterf*ck that feuding Mexican emos, metaleros, punketos and other modern types presents to the gabacho mind, which still largely thinks Mexico is one giant, continent-spanning sombrero.

I personally don’t like emo, but not because I think it’s somehow not “Mexican” - last I checked, the punk and metal movements that spawned the movimiento anti-emo didn’t originate south of the border, either. And those pendejos going after wabs in Dashboard Confessional t-shirts embody the worst tendencies of the Mexican character: intolerant of anything it doesn’t consider “Mexican,” preferring to bully weaklings instead of facing the big niños, and hopelessly outdated. Oigan, anti-emo folks: Hating emos is so 1998. Porque no you guys go after a true Mexican plague - like, say, your immigrant-producing economy?

Dear Readers: The paperback edition of ¡Ask a Mexican! (released on April 22) differs from the hardcover that appeared last May in that it contains an extra chapter of new preguntas and a new cover. Double the fun at nearly half the cost - why don’t you have a copy in your hands?
PS: Seriously, gentle readers: buy my book! I need to comprar a new identity!


PERMALINK:
Ask A Mexican 4/23/08 | Planet JH News Article: Ask A Mexican

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