In honor of the wearing of the green, one of my all-time favorite ¡Ask a Mexican! back-and-forths, one so scandalous it got a man suspended from work:
Dear Mexican: Why do spics and micks get along so well? Is it because both races are drunk, fornicating, degenerate Catholics?
Don Mulletino
Dear Mick: Get your racial slurs straight–Mexicans are wabs, not spics. Otherwise, you nailed it on the cabeza, cabrón.
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And the similarities don't end there. The Irish were the Mexicans of the United States before the Mexicans. Millions of them migrated to this country destitute, as indentured servants (the precursor to the braceroprogram) and even as illegal immigrants. They were fleeing a homeland under siege by evil Protestants only to find similar treatment in the States. Gabachoshere maligned the Irish for their Catholicism, their funny English, their big families and constant state of inebriation–stereotypes popularized by the mainstream press. The Irish fought back: they formed gangs and voting blocs and–in the case of the Saint Patrick's Battalion–an entire battalion of hundreds of soldiers defected to the Mexican side during the 1846 Mexican-American War.
But the Irish in America, to paraphrase Noel Ignatiev's famous 1995 book, eventually became white, while Mexicans will forever remain Mexicans in the eyes of gabachos. Nevertheless, the spic-mick connection continues. I know many children of Irish-Mexican heritage who call themselves “leprecanos” a miscegenation of the words “leprechaun” and “Chicano.” Many Irish-American civic organizations support amnesty for illegals since about 50,000 Irish immigrants have no papers. Mexico and Ireland have harsh laws against illegal immigration and must constantly deal with their idiot cousins across the border, Guatemala and Northern Ireland. And gabachoshave warped our precious St. Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo holidays into bacchanals of booze and women–on second thought, that's a compliment. Our races are brothers in depravity, Don Mulletino, so let's unite and throw the gabachos down the well, ¿qué no?
