The Daily Weekly News, Politics, and Media

Afternoon Edition: Edwards, Junior, and Beer for a Cause
Posted May 14; 04:02 pm

Reverb Music & Nightlife

INTERVIEW: Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips
Posted May 15; 06:22 am

Voracious Food News and Reviews

First Call: Learning to Love at Hazlewood
Posted May 15; 06:00 am

Thread Count Arts, People, and Style

Exclusive Interview: Augusten Burroughs
Posted May 13; 02:07 pm

Buzzer Beater Seattle Sports

Five Reasons to Save the Mariners' Season "The Right Way"
Posted May 15; 07:00 am


Slideshows

Newsletters

Stay up-to-date with the Seattle Weekly. We'll e-mail you a detailed rundown of what's on seattleweekly.com once a week.

Signing up is simple and you can opt out anytime. Give it a try.

Web Feeds

Use one of the buttons below to subscribe to Seattle Weekly's full Web feed. Or choose from our full list of Web feeds.

- For Newsreaders

- For Home Pages

Free Classifieds Seattle, WA

Call Me a "Wetback." I Dare You.

By Gustavo Arellano

May 7, 2008

Dear Mexican,

Whenever I see the television show COPS, the white folks pull over and hope no one searches anything, where there are at least three syringes, one crack pipe, and enough pills to make CVS Pharmacy look like a corner drugstore. The black folks are being pulled over for just leaving the scene of a domestic dispute where they've been reported for slapping the bitch and kicking her new man in the crotch, regardless of the fact they have been separated, divorced, and placed on restraining order at least TWICE in the last two years. But why is it that every time a cop tries to pull over a Mexican for a bad taillight or some other minor infraction, it turns into a high-speed chase, until all the tires are shot out and the wheels fall off, and then the Mexicans bail out and try to outrun the German shepherd? Couldn't they for once just pull over and take a ticket? I mean, the police are not the Border Patrol, and the police dogs are not, like, chihuahuas.Gringo out in the Suburbs

Dear Gabacho,

COPS is hardly as credible a source in documenting the Mexican criminal mente as, say, Dora the Explorer. Not only do I rarely see high-speed chases involving Mexicans in the FOX program, but stats are also not kept pertaining to ethnicity and police pursuits. What bean-counters do know, however, is that foreign-born Mexican men are less prone to visit the slammer than your local Minuteman Project chapter will have you believe. A 2006 study led by University of California, Irvine professor Rubén G. Rumbaut found only 0.7 percent of Mexican-born males in the United States were incarcerated, a figure more than twice as small as the 1.71 percent amount for gabachos. But not all is right in Aztlán: Rumbaut's findings also revealed that 5.9 percent of U.S.-born wabs are in the pokey. Why? Billions have been spent researching that question, so the Mexican won't bother with his thoughts except to add it ain't something inherently criminal in the Mexican soul—again, look at the jail rates for Mexican immigrants. Sorry for the downer ending, but if you want jokes to accompany unfunny Mexican pathologies, go yuck at Carlos Mencia.

Why do the Mexicans hate the word "wetback" or mojado? I grew up fighting all the time because my jefita from El Paso told me to never let any gabacho call me a wetback. But as I got into high school, I learned that you can really piss off a gaba by not affirming his racist comments. Whenever they would call me a wetback, I'd just touch my back and tell the pendejos, "Hey, my back isn't wet." Thus they would walk away so red that they looked like a walking pimple ready to bust.From a Fan, Ese

Dear Wab,

Gracias for your inspiring tale, Ese. If all Mexicans had the same wit and gumption as you, we'd be able to retake the American Southwest with ease. As it stands, our zygotes will have to keep doing the trabajo.

garellano@seattleweekly.com

Comments (3)

Reader Comments

1. Comment by robert oday — May 12, 2008 @ 2:39PM
to the stupid drug dealing cho lo get the fuck out of my country and take your dope and cho lo ways with you. all your doing is fucking up a great country for the ones who are doing positive things and not killing innocent children!!!!!!!!! the cho lo must die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
2. Comment by robert oday — May 12, 2008 @ 2:39PM
to the stupid drug dealing cho lo get the fuck out of my country and take your dope and cho lo ways with you. all your doing is fucking up a great country for the ones who are doing positive things and not killing innocent children!!!!!!!!! the cho lo must die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
3. Comment by Cholo — May 14, 2008 @ 5:40PM
Hey white guy, you dudes is buyin' the dope!

* indicates required fields. Please enable browser cookies before filling out this form. All reader comments are subject to our Terms of Use. By clicking Add Comment, you acknowledge that you have reviewed and agree to these Terms.




(Characters are case sensitive)

Comments may take a few moments to process and appear on the site. Please do not click the "Add Comment" button again while your comment is being added.

More "Ask a Mexican"

More >>
Most 
Popular

I’m (Not) With Busey

News By Aimee Curl

Help Or I’ll Shoot

News By Laura Onstot

The Silver Bullet of Seattle Street Food

Food By Jesse Froehling

A Tea Two-fer

Food By Maggie Dutton

How Seattle Could Have Saved Jerry Garcia

Food By Mike Seely
now click this

Travel
Pacific Northwest Getaways

Seattle Home Search
1000's of Listings and Detailed Neighborhood Information

Seattle Weekly Online Career Fair!
Where People & Jobs Find Each Other.

Sound Living ®
Seattle Metro Real Estate


To Do List

Thursday, May 15

El Perro Del Mar, Lykke Li, Anna Ternheim
"For you I keep my legs apart, and forget about my broken heart." So goes t... More>>
Triple Door Mainstage, Thu., May 15, 7:30pm, $15 adv./$17

GI Joe Stop-Motion Film Festival
Perhaps the essence of the GI Joe Stop-Motion Film Festival is captured in ... More>>
Grand Illusion, Thu., May 15, 7:00pmThu., May 15, 9:00pmThu., May 15, 11:00pm

French Noir at SAM
Claude Chabrol's 2004 adaptation of the Ruth Rendell novel The Bridesmaid i... More>>
Seattle Art Museum, Every week Thursday from Thu., May 1 until Thu., June 5, 7:30pm, $7 (individual), $58-$65 (series)

134 more things to do today>>
Find a Restaurant

 
A work of love from charismatic man-about-town Waid Sainvil, Waid's is the only Haitian restaurant o...
Off the Delridge Way exit from the West Seattle Bridge, Skylark Cafe & Club is a genuine blue-collar...
The Northlake Tavern is proud to tell you that its small pie weighs more than two-and-a-half pounds ...
Entering Can Can is like walking into Moulin Rouge—not the Parisian tourist trap, the Baz Luhrmann m...
Find a Concert

Thursday, May 15
Our Top Picks
Check out our Digital Jukebox!
Find a Movie

Find a Theater

Find a Club

The groan-inducingly named Thai One On in Lake City dims its lights and switches on the speakers at ...
Seattle resident Gabe Morgan was once in a constant mental, physical, and psychological battle with ...
I haven't eaten much steak this summer because I'm usually broke. When I discovered Ozzie's Wednesda...
Pure, unadulterated joy is the look permanently affixed to the face of a man doing the mambo to the ...
It's Saturday night between 10th and 11th on Pike Street, Capitol Hill's bustling new epicenter. The...
national

Headlines from Coast to Coast

SF Weekly

Viva Farolito!

Former pros from Latin America help make an "amateur" soccer team unstoppable. More >>

Village Voice

The Barely Legal Empire of Tony Alamo

A nutty polygamist pastor rebuilds his church--with help from New Yorkers. More >>

Miami New Times

Love is No Contract

A Florida man sues his girlfriend-for dumping him. More >>

Houston Press

The Myth of the Bachelor's Degree

A growing number of educators face a hard truth: not every kid is college material. More >>