Dear Mexican: I hear all the time that 12 million illegal immigrants live in the United States. Is that true? Who counted them? How did they do it? Is there a turnstile at the...

Ask a Mexican: Breaking the Crypto-Mexican Code

Dear Mexican: I recently received the biography of Rolling Stones bassist Ronnie Woods. While reading about his friendship with Jimi Hendrix, Ronnie described him as...

Dear Mexican: In a column some time ago, you mentioned the Aztec prophecy claiming that “their descendants would reclaim ancestral lands in the southwest U.S., and guess...

Ask a Mexican: Sticker Schlock

Why is it that all Mexicans (not the pocho/Chicano Mexicans like me, but the border-brother ones) always have those stupid fucking stickers depicting the images of their huge...

Dear Readers: I don’t like to rerun columns ’cause it makes me look like a lazy Mexican, but I realize that, as my column invades foreign terrain (Chattanooga!...

Dear Mexican: What is an anchor baby? I am a 45-year-old male born in the U.S.A. My mother was born in ex-Yugoslavia (now Serbia), and my father was also born in ex-Yugoslavia...

Dear Mexican: I am a chicastruggling with the choice to come out to my parents about my sexual orientation. My family is Catholic and my parents are old school. While we are...

Pachuco: The Linguistic Origins

Dear Readers: The Mexican’s new book, Orange County: A Personal History, is in your local bookstore on September 16 — by pure coincidence, Mexican Independence...

The Illegal Has Landed

Dear Mexican: I’m an illegal alien. Got here on a tourist visa and stayed for a job. My gabacho employer knows about it and doesn’t give a crap. I don’t...

Well Suited: The Legacy of the Pachuco

I grew up in the 1950s in Montebello, California. There was an enclave within the Mexican community known as pachucos. As a little white kid, I found their mannerisms,...

Tongues Twisted

Dear Mexican: I am the proud uncle of five Mexican-redneck kids who recently moved to Wausau with their mamá wisconsiana after living in la Capirucha all their lives....

Angry About "Anchor Babies"

Dear Mexican: As a Mexican, I’m always ashamed of the fact that a lot of Mexican women just come to the U.S. to have babies and to utilize this country’s welfare....

The Tights Club

Other than the infamous Tijuana bibles and now Memín Pinguín, I don’t know much about comics from south of the border. How about a short history of comics...

All Mixed Up Over La Raza

Dear Mexican: What’s with calling yourselves “La Raza”? Being Mexicans, Chicanos or whatever isn’t enough — now you’re THE race? Sounds...

Special Tortilla Contest Edition

Dear Readers: Gracias, merci, obrigado for the many submissions in our contest asking readers to argue in 25 words why corn tortillas are superior to flour, or vice versa....

Migra Headaches: Brown-on-Brown Crime-Fighting

Dear Mexican: Why are there Mexicans in the Border Patrol? What a hypocritical thing to do to our people. —Carne Asada Carlos Dear Wab: Not only are Mexicans in...

Why Mexicans Love Elvis

Dear Mexican: What’s the fascination Mexicans have with Elvis? —Good Roceando Tonight Dear Gabacho: Your question is spot-on, but it’s taken a while...

New Slant on Italics

Why are words in Spanish in your column in italics? I feel that including Spanish and Spanglish slang in articles should be read in a natural, conversational way and not be...

An Eye for an Evil Eye

My mother is from a very superstitious community of forest-dwelling indios in the state of Guerrero. It seems that every time someone in her family has a newborn, she asks,...

Fanning the Fuego at Dodger Stadium

Dear Mexican: I recently went to a Los Angeles Dodgers game at Dodger Stadium. It was good to see the familias having fun with their children, pero I then saw and heard...