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¡ASK A MEXICAN!
BY GUSTAVO ARELLANO
Dear Mexican: What's the deal with Spanish-language car dealer-
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lating with used cars? I just saw one where three girls were rubbing
melted chocolate on each other. Surely, no one in mainstream
Caucasian America could get away with such overtly sexual, misog-
ynistic advertising. Does this type of ad actually convince people to
buy cars? — Not Buying a Used Sentra with Boob Prints all Over It
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Each sentence from the following pregunta is an excerpt from the multiple
questions in the Mexican’s archive that address the same topic.
SHIT
HAPPENS
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Dear Alien: You didn’t specify where you’re from, so I’ll assume
eres from another dimension because no
gabacho would ever send in the above
question. From Betty Boop's race-car driver
in Ker Choo to Paris Hilton recording a
burger-chain commercial a couple of years
ago that saw the heiress washing a carro,
Americans have insisted that girls accom-
pany their grilles—and Mexicans are no
different. Freudians can debate the whys,
but Mexicans only care about the whos
(chicas calientes), whats (appearing in car
commercials), whens (during weekend morn-
ings), wheres (on your local Spanish-language
channel), and hows (vigorously). If you only take
one thing from Earth, Sentra, it’s that sexo sells in all languages. Oh, and that
Guatemalans can’t spell.
Having been called a gabacho, I couldn’t help being interested in
the etymological root of that word. I'm never sure what the refer-
ence is with the term gabacho, since in my Spanish dictionary
(Bantam New College Revised from 1987), gabacho means
"Pyrenean" (someone from the Pyrenees, the mountains between
France and Spain), "Frenchy," or "Frenchified Spanish." My ques-
tion is which came first: the Spanish "gabacho" for the French, or
the Mexican "gabacho" for the gringo? Does this go way back to
those French vatos that got their trousers kicked on Cinco de Mayo
in Puebla? Ramen is yummy.
Dear Readers: Few features of this column are more controversial that the
Mexican’s preference for gabacho instead of gringo to describe gabachos.
Technically, gabacho refers to an inhabitant of the Pyrenees, but it became a
Spanish slur for a Frenchman over the centuries. The Royal Academy of
Spanish states gabacho originated from the Provençal word gavach, which
means "bad-speaking." (Quick note for amateur etymologists: don’t believe
the 2000 collection Chicano Folklore: A Guide to the Folktales, Traditions,
Rituals and Religious Practices of Mexican Americans, which states gabacho
comes from an arcane Castilian term meaning "a current of water," or the
NTC’s Dictionary of Mexican Cultural Code Words edition claiming, "When
Mexican men noted that foreign men often helped their wives in the kitchen,
something a Mexican male wouldn’t dream of doing, they began calling such
men gabachos or ‘aprons.’" )
When the French briefly conquered Mexico during the 1860s, the Mexicans
correctly ridiculed the occupying army as gabachos; after los franceses left,
the term remained, and Mexicans applied it to their perpetual European antag-
onists: Americans. Nevertheless, many Mexicans grumble that I should call
gabachos gringos since it’s the more accurate term for gabachos (funnily, none
ever ask I stop slurring our pasty amigos). So why does this Mexican use
gabacho? Besides growing up with the word, it allows Mexicans to smuggle
two ethnic slurs in uno handy word—not only are we calling gabachos grin-
gos, but we’re also calling them French. Parlez-vous double insult, cabrones?
CONFIDENTIAL TO: The state of Oklahoma, which recently enacted one
of the harshest anti-immigrant laws in the country. Don’t give Mexicans mier-
da about H.B. 1804 being anti-ILLEGAL immigration—your Sooner ances-
tors and Okie grandparents sure as hell didn’t make such distinctions when
invading the Unassigned Lands and California, respectively. May a Dust Bowl
of pedos afflict your slack-jawed state. ¡Viva Tom Osborne!
THEMEXICAN@ASKAMEXICAN.NET
NOVEMBER 21, 2007 37