DEAR READERS: The Mexican is currently in the hills of Kentucky, drinking white dog with the good ol' chicos while doing tamborazo covers of “Molly and Tenbrooks” and bluegrass versions of “Las Isabeles”—because hillbillys and paisas are brothers from another madre, you know? Anyhoo, onto some oldies pero goodies. Salud, and yee-haw!
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DEAR MEXICAN: It seems that whenever Chicano professors want to show off their mexicanidad, they wear a guayabera. In fact, I saw a picture of you in the Los Angeles Times donning the shirt, along with Dickies pants and Converse All Stars. How trite and bourgeois! You go to a café or bar in any university town in Mexico, and the students will think you're totally naco. I stopped wearing the guayabera when a friend said I looked like a waiter in a Mexican restaurant. Do certain clothes determine your Mexicanness?
Sexy Mexy
DEAR POCHO: Abso-pinche-lutely. “The bigger the sombrero, the wabbier the man” is a commandment all Mexicans learn from the Virgin of Guadalupe. But seriously, Mexican clothes correspond to social and economic status—sweaty T-shirt indicates laborer, calf-length skirt means a proper Mexican woman, and if a cobbler used the hide of an endangered reptile to fashion your cowboy boots, you're probably a drug dealer or a Texan. The guayabera (a loose-fitting, pleated shirt common in the Mexican coastal state of Veracruz and other tropical regions of Latin America) also announces something about its owner: The güey is feeling hot and wants to look sharp. Why the hate, Sexy? Remember what Andy Warhol said: “Nothing is more bourgeois than to be afraid to look bourgeois.” Who cares if people mistake you for a waiter if you sport a guayabera? Just spit in their soup. And who cares if Mexican university students call me, you or any guayabera wearer a naco (Mexico City slang for bumpkin)? They can't be that smart if they're still in Mexico.
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DEAR MEXICAN: Why do Mexicans pronounce “shower” as “chower” but “chicken” as “shicken”?
Vietnamese About To Orate (VATO)
DEAR CHINO: This column has provided readers with many indicators of the differences between recently arrived Mexicans and los que have lived here for generations: skin tone, car purchases, whether the Mexican in question flushes his soiled toilet paper or tosses it in the trash can. Another sure-fire way is the ch/sh test. Proper Spanish doesn't feature a “sh” sound (known among linguists as a lingua-palatal fricative), so Mexicans pronounce English words using a “sh” sound with the harsher “ch” (known as a lingua-alveolar affricate). However, many indigenous Mexican tongues use linguapalatal fricatives. The most famous example is in the original pronunciation of Mexico: As said in Nahuatl, the word sounds like “meh-shee-ko.” The Spaniards couldn't pronounce the middle consonant, though, instead substituting a guttural “j” (as in “Meh-hee-ko”) early in the Conquest. They killed most of Mexico's Indians in the ensuing decades, but the indigenous “sh” sound never wholly disappeared; if you do hear a Mexican using “sh,” it's probably a Mexican Indian. So next time you hear a Mexican ask for a “Shinese shicken sandwish with Sheddar sheese,” VATO, por favor don't shortle.
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