DEAR MEXICAN: I employ two lovely ladies who clean my home and take care of my toddler two days per week when I go out to run errands. They are loving and kind and take superb care of her. My daughter adores them, and they adore her. From the minute I brought my baby home, I have asked them to speak Spanish to the baby so she would grow up bilingual. For some reason, they will not do it, unless I really push them, and then they speak Spanglish to her, as in, “Do you want more leche?” That isn't going to help my child learn Spanish.
What really frustrates me is their English is not all that great. I don't want my child pronouncing shoes as choos, and chicken as shicken, and I don't want her using double negatives. My husband and I speak English very well, and we can teach our child English. What we don't do is speak colloquial Spanish, which is where I had hoped these ladies would help us. The frustrating parts are they speak Spanish to each other all the time, just not to my child, and one of them is convinced my child will grow up speaking Spanish and comments on it, even as I ask her repeatedly (and pointedly) how will that happen when she barely speaks two words to my daughter in Spanish the whole time she is in my house?
I don't get it—why will they speak Spanish to each other and not to my baby, even when I have asked them and asked them to? As I understand it, even if she doesn't grow up speaking Spanish, just hearing it now will develop neural pathways in her brain that will make it easier for her to learn foreign languages later in life.
Spanglish No Me Gusta!
DEAR GABACHO: Did you know that conservative icon William F. Buckley's first language was Spanish? Taught to him in Mexico by a nanny. I'm sure Buckley's parents didn't hover over the niñera every moment, demanding she teach their son a certain Spanish to their exacting standards; after all, the nanny was the person who knew Spanish, not the parents, so they knew to stay the hell out of the way. Do you think your toddler doesn't listen to the ladies speaking Spanish and absorb it all? You're insulting the help and your child—and hating Spanglish? Vete to pinche hell, pendeja.
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DEAR MEXICAN: I've noticed a pattern among Mexican men: they seem to be able to focus on large breasts and asses to the exclusion of everything else on a female. She could be the fattest, ugliest, nastiest-looking chick in town (often, she doesn't even need to be Mexican), and they'll still go nuts for her ample T and A. In the past, I've even heard lascivious remarks about Rosie O'Donnell! Rosie O'Donnell? Please shed some light.
More of an Eyes Guy
DEAR POCHO: Mexican men are so obsessed with tits and ass that we coined the sacrilegious puns “chichis Christ” (“Tits Christ,” a play on “Jesus Christ”) and “nálgame Diós” (“Ass me, God,” from the expression “¡Válgame Diós!” or “Oh, my God”). Why the curve addiction? Nature, son—same reason nearly all the Paleolithic Venus figurines were of BBWs and not a flaca. And don't forget hips—glorious, sumptuous caderas, cabrón.
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