BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
Painful Humor
EW asked to stop running ‘¡Ask a Mexican!’
S
hortly after Eugene Weekly began
running the satirical advice column,
“¡Ask a Mexican!” in the Nov. 8
issue, letters to the editor began pouring in,
nearly all demanding that EW stop printing
the weekly syndicated column. Letters this
week are more varied.
Is Eugene ready for this ethnic and politi-
cal satire? Local Latino leaders fear
Eugeneans lack the context to learn from the
humor, especially as the immigration debate
heats up. For instance, Oregon Gov. Ted
Kulongoski recently signed an order that
makes it dramatically more difficult for ille-
gal immigrants to get a driver’s license (for
more, see page 19).
“¡Ask a Mexican!” is written by Orange
County, Calif.-based Gustavo Arellano and
syndicated across the country from
California to New York and many places in
between, like Tulsa, Okla., by Village Voice
Media (see cover story last week). The col-
umn has won national awards and Arellano
has been featured by NPR, The Today Show,
Utne, Nightline and The Colbert Report. The
column has also inspired knock-offs from the
online
blog
“Ask
a
Korean!”
(askakorean.blogspot.com) to Anchorage
Press’ controversial and failed attempt to cre-
ate “Ask an Eskimo!”
On Nov. 28, EW Editor Ted Taylor and
paper co-owner and board member Anita
Johnson met with approximately 18 con-
cerned community leaders, including City
Councilors Andrea Ortiz and Mike Clark, UO
Vice Provost Charles Martinez (who is also
chair of the 4J School Board) and heads of
local social service agencies, many of which
focus on Eugene’s Latino community.
The goal of the meeting, said Centro
Latino Americano (CLA) Executive Director
Jorge Navarro, who hosted the gathering, was
“about creating dialogue.”
Among the concerns that were discussed
at the meeting was the issue of context, as
well as concerns about the often-ribald lan-
guage Arellano employs. In past columns
Arellano has used Spanish slang like puta,
which Carmen Urbina, a long-time Latina ad-
vocate in Eugene, called, “worse than a
whore.”
Urbina also pointed to Arellano’s use of
the phrase “un nopal en la frente,” which
roughly translates to “a cactus growing from
the forehead.” This phrase is used by U.S.
Mexicans to describe other Mexicans “fresh
from the border,” according to Arellano.
“Reading this column, seeing those
words, do you know what this means?” asked
Urbina. “It hits to the core of demeaning
stereotypes,” she said.
“This is giving this community permis-
sion to use this language in the context of
snark and comedy,” Urbina said. “Our chil-
dren can’t deal with this. I have to explain
hate,” she said.
Urbina works with Mujeres Latinas, a
group of 135 Latina women, some of whom
she says were driven to tears when shown the
column.
“This column doesn’t have a place in this
community,” said Guadalupe Quinn,
CAUSA Lane County regional coordinator.
“We don’t have the luxury that California
does — they have the previous knowledge of
the language and the culture,” said Juan
Carlos Valle, one of CLA’s board members.
protesting outside Mexican restaurants
owned by Mexicans who use similar carica-
tures?”
“There is no balance” to running the col-
umn, commented Ortiz, who cited concerns
that EW and other media do not feature
enough reporting on Latino issues. Some
community members also asked about the
lack of local Latino voices in the paper.
Taylor and Johnson extended an invitation to
the Latino community to write regular
columns for EW.
Taylor reminded the gathering of EW’s
‘This column doesn’t have a place
in this community.’
—Guadalupe Quinn, CAUSA Lane County Regional Coordinator
“Keep in mind, we’re in Oregon,” he added.
Johnson, who is also a contributing editor
to EW, said the paper’s editorial board de-
cided to run the column because they saw it
“as a way of combating racism and stereotyp-
ing.” Arellano himself has stated in numerous
interviews that the goal of the column, in-
cluding the caricature of a gold-toothed som-
brero-wearing Mexican with a mustache, “is
to debunk the stereotypes that people do have
about Mexicans, to aggressively go after
racists” (EW 11/29).
Arellano, in response to criticisms of the
caricature, asked: “Are these same activists
subsidizing the printing and inserting of the
Spanish-language paper El Norte in EW for
about nine months in 2005. EW was unable to
continue El Norte due to a lack of advertising
support. Only one letter to the editor sup-
ported the effort, and none noted the cessa-
tion of El Norte in EW, Taylor said.
Toward the end of the more than one-hour
meeting, several members of the group de-
manded an immediate decision on whether or
not to stop publishing “¡Ask a Mexican!”
Johnson said she alone could not make that
decision and promised to report to the board
about the meeting.
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DECEMBER 6, 2007 21