Canto CCCLIV: Thoughts On 20 Years of ¡Ask a Mexican!

(Gustavo note: For those of ustedes who read my cantos Saturday morning with your coffee, go get a concha or empanada right now, because this one is looooong)

Gentle cabrones:

By election season 2004, I had found my reporting swing at the Infernal Rag.

Two food reviews a week. One hard-hitting story after another nearly every week — Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal, SanTana politics, corruption in Placentia that would eventually lead to an OC grand jury investigation. A cover story a month. Music coverage, as I mentioned in a canto over the summer. Even dabbling in arts.

All of this at a time where we published next-to-nothing original online and social media didn’t exist outside of MySpace — imagine that!

I must’ve impressed my boss is enough, because he gave me a columna in the summer – but not the one that you think…yet.

“Burning Bush” was a small thing in the news section where I quoted conservative critics of George W. Bush. People loved it, and someone on Twitter actually shouted it out recently — WHOA… What I loved most about the columna is that it taught me to seek out publications of all political shades, an exercise I still indulge in today (I’m not sure what’s more sanctimonious: The Manhattan Institute or The Free Press. Actually, the former: The latter can at least sometimes draw a forced chuckle).

But there was a timestamp to the column: It would end after the election, whether John Kerry or Dubya won. We all know how that turned out. 

I was in my reportorial groove but I wasn’t part of the cool kids on staff, so my ideas for overall coverage were usually ignored. I really didn’t care, because at least my personal story ideas were getting approved. That’s why I was surprised when Guillermo agreed that for our Election Day issue — which would publish on the Thursday right after election day – we should put an image of George W. Bush flipping off the camera on the cover. It wasn’t an illustration — it was a still from an video outtake he had done while governor of Texas.

The cover was an immediate smash — a lot of conservatives flipped out, a lot of liberals loved it. What other newspaper in the United States would do that? Only the Infernal Rag.

I was proud, even if my contribution to that week’s Election Day timeline was reduced to me nearly getting in a fight with a loser Placentia councilmember’s bro son after he tried to trip an elderly man. And now there was a problem: we needed to fill the space once occupied by “Burning Bush” the following week. And since it was my column space, it was my job to fill it.

We used to do fake columns all the time, and then that spirit resulted the columna that forever changed my life.

What more can I say about a columna — whose origins I wrote about in two full essays (lost in the Internet archives), was recounted in an oral history (still up) and book and a previous canto (find it!), was retold by Coker (I’m still not president, and never will be, alas — but I sure as hell am now in the By-God L.A. Times!), and which I have retold hundreds of times at this point in my life, including this past Thursday at USC Annenberg?

A lot of random thoughts that add up.

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¡Ask a Mexican! was an immediate smash from the moment it started until it ended in 2017. It was such a smash that in my archives are printed out all the questions I never got two answer: 211 pages worth of them in Times New Roman 12-point single-spaced font. Not a single repeat.

It let me travel around the country, do all sorts of television and radio appearances and in-person appearances, brought me fans, and also turned off fans. It’s mostly forgotten today, except by those who read it — and that was kinda the point. I wanted the columna to be part of a great tradition of American ethnic media columnists, like Mr. Dooley, Olle I Skratthult and Sut Lovingwood, proud ethnics who commented on the hypocrisy of Americans while being more American than them and whose words eventually faded away but whose voice helped to gird a subversive strain of American thought.

That was me now.

Besides, I purposefully made sure that ¡Ask a Mexican! would never solely define me — because I contain multitudes.

¡Ask a Mexican! was a cult hit until my now-colleague, Daniel Hernandez, wrote a Column One in the By-God L.A. Times that made me as mainstream as I would ever be. I love how my Profe Jefe Alexandro Jose Gradilla was quoted in that article, and was quoted in the last article written about The Former Columna by my compa, Russell Contreras.

When Guillermo and I started to talk or think that maybe we could do a book compilation of the best, we went to a local publisher who said he would publish it if I paid him $10,000. I emailed him back and said I think he made a mistake by putting in an extra zero; he assured me that he didn’t. When my two-book deal was announced with Scribner in May 2004, he sent me a note of congratulation. I told him thank you.

I remember when it came to a book deal, the new owners of the Infernal Rag — the Barbarians from Phoenix — wanted to take a 50% cut of any advance, and I told them him to slag off – I wanted the entire thing. Lacey, God bless his incarcerated mick soul, said give Gustavo what he wants. 

True story: The book was almost published by Feral House instead of Scribner. My editor there was hands-on in the book version of The Former Columna and the second book, but shuffled me off to his assistant for Taco USA. Kinda orphaned me, if I’m being honest — but in his staff bio in his current role, he does list me as one of the marquee authors he’s worked with in the past. Too kind!

I remember when the Barbarians from Phoenix suggested we syndicate the columna, they said they’d take two-thirds of all syndication fees. Sure! When they couldn’t find any takers outside of the Albuquerque Alibi and papers in our chain (which got it for free), the executive in charge of that allowed me to syndicate it on my own and keep all fees because he didn’t think anyone would take it. I got it up to 39 newspapers – your biggest advocate is always gonna be yourself. 

Almost all the outside attention and analysis ever put to The Former Columna was basically gone by 2008. But the columna... continued. There were so many invites to speaking gigs that I got a speaking agent, who kept me busy for years (Trump finally made him too wacky for me, and I arrange everything on my own now — hit me up, although who wants to hear from a 45-year-old Mexican with glasses?).

A lot of the questions that I used to answer, I see youngsters tackle on TikTok and Instagram — but they accept the stereotypes instead of dismantle them. Good for them!

The Former Columna made me nearly untouchable. When the Barbarians from Phoenix came and took over Village Voice Media, Lacey announced I was “the franchise per player” per Coker, which didn’t sit well with my colleagues at all. But I knew that columna woould a shield for those of us who stayed, and got me an inside track to eventually became The Mexican in Chief. We were the only paper of the old Village Voice Media group that wasn’t radically transformed — and it’s all because of ¡Ask a Mexican!

That alone made The Former Columna all worth it.

When I used to sell books at appearances, I’d pack them in boxes outfitted to sell strawberries. People never knew whether to laugh or get angry — although when my second batch of publicity photos came out (me selling oranges on the 17th Street exit to I-5 North), people got plenty angry.

When the Barbarians from Phoenix sold the Infernal Rag to King Lear, one of the main selling points – which I didn’t find out until years later — was ¡Ask a Mexican! It gave me the inside track to pursue my book deals, to become editor, to fulfill all the dreams that I had in journalism up to that time.

But every once in a while, I wonder what would’ve happened if I never wrote The Former Columna

¡Ask Mexican! never took up too much of my time – it made me a better researcher, honed my humor, and obviously got me a lot of notoriety that translated into more opportunities. But all of that meant I had to drop other things. I know I could’ve nailed certain politicians, who shall remain nameless, who went on to have long careers if I had the time to devote to them. I would’ve done more features, more investigations. Maybe I would’ve written more books.

I know I owe my entire career as it is today to it, and I’ve loved my career, so I don’t think too much about what could’ve been but rather celebrate what was is, and hopefully will continue to be.

I will always feel bad about the people who lost opportunities because they dared to defend me for writing The Former Columna – a fellowship lost, a job lost. I’ll never forget the woman at the Redlands Library who tried to have my appearance there canceled – how she stared at me from the back as I began to talk, and stomped off instead of trying to talk to me. I will always wonder who told the Duarte Library  to cancel on me the day I was supposed to speak there.

I’ve never had a good experience in Duarte — has anything good come out of there besides City of Hope?

It was attempted to turn into a television show twice. The first one was with a former staff writer from Roseanne who was nice, but didn’t get it. Its producer champion was a former producer on The Cosby Show who would say during pitch meetings that The Former Columna was the next Cosby Show — BARF. The second time, the screenplay was by the writing team who created Grounded for Life, and it was good. George Lopez would be the executive producer. We went to the CBS studios to make our pitch, but he left early because he was going to go on a flight to Boston to hang out with the Dalai Lama.

Never got picked up.

Got turned into a play twice. The first one had a performance one time in New York – a former classmate of mine from Anaheim High who has been a huge fan of mine over the years even though we didn’t really talk much in high school, went. It was done like Eric Bogosian’s Talk Radio – it was good but maybe too serious of a read on me, and it was never performed again. The person who nailed it was Tony Garcia, the man behind Su Teatro in Denver, the third-oldest Latino theatre troupe in the country. He was the person crazy enough to allow me and Tom Tancredo to go at it at Su Teatro in the late aughts before an SRO crowd.

A few years later, he suggested we turn The Former Columna into a play, Interview with a Mexican. I wrote about what happened with that in Canto XXXII — you still have it saved, right?

It was a hit for them. They were able to take it on the road, there was huge plans to take it even further in 2020… and we know what happened.

All of the above to say that although I long ago moved on from The Former Columna, it will always be a part of me.

Interview with a Mexican is running for a limited engagement in Los Angeles as part of the Latino Theater Company’s Encuentro. Hundreds of plays from across the United States were submitted for consideration for staging — and Interview with a Mexican was one of 19 productions picked. I’m going to be Oct. 26, Dodgers World Series be damned — and so should you.

The main critiques against ¡Ask a Mexican! — that it justified racism, that I shouldn’t mock serious matters — long disappeared, along with the critics. What always outnumbered them, anyways, was people telling me how important The Former Columna was to them — that it made them proud, that I stood up for Mexicans in a way no one else did, at a time not enough of us in the media did.

And here we are.

Hell, now I’m getting college students who say their parents were the ones who introduced them to me!

How would ¡Ask a Mexican! look today? I never think about that. My career with the Infernal Rag was like another lifetime ago, in another dimension. If ¡Ask a Mexican! would’ve continued, I’d still be there. I think I would’ve owned the damn thing. Would’ve weathered the PC pendejo years, and still be what it was — and I would’ve been happier.

But I’m happier now than I ever was. When people tell me they miss ¡Ask a Mexican!, I thank them but tell them I have a far better columna now. Most don’t even know I do.

Best critique: My best friend Art saying I was going to be reduced to standing on street corners telling people “Hey, do you want to ask a Mexican"?” Fuck Art.

The Former Columna still resonates. Last week, I spoke at Renaissance High School for the Arts in Long Beach alongside Daniel. We were there as part of the school’s annual author showcase, which included student authors.

We went at the invite of Ky-Phong Paul Tran, Long Beach Unified’s teacher of the year and an acclaimed writer in his own write. A nonprofit donated 50 copies of our books to give out to students, and I thought it was gonna be Taco USA – but ¡Ask a Mexican!? I signed copies before class, and I tried to figure out which questions was I going to read, so I flipped through the book.

I hadn’t done it since I left the Infernal Rag. Damn, it was a savage columna. Too many dated comments — too many things from the Dubya administration. Maybe a bit too much on the sex talk. I don’t regret the slams against Guatemalans — I did it to point out that Mexicans were as xenophobic as gabas, and here we are.

But the humor remains, and its rebel yell against anti-Mexican racism in the lily-gaba world of alt-weeklies, in an era of too-serious Latino columnists was audacious. I found myself laughing and gasping and wondering how the fuck did I get away with it all.

I didn’t have a chance to read from the book in front of hundreds of students, because time was running short, and I instead read an L.A. Times column about my dad. Afterward, Ky-Phong took Daniel and I to get great Cambodian food at Monorom, and he loaded us with like 10 different types of pork dishes, a whole fish, and so much more. 

I’m always busy, and I agreed to lunch because I wanted to hang out with him. I didn’t realize there was gonna be so many others there, and I didn’t realize it was gonna be for two hours. It was wonderful, it was great, and right when I was about to go, Ky-Phong said he wanted to share one final story. 

He was thrilled that Daniel and I read. He said that two of his students, young Latino men, sat rapt in attention as we spoke, which Ky-Phong said he had never seen them do (Daniel read from his underrated Down and Delirious in Mexico City). And then he said that another student, one who never had any interest in reading, got a copy of my book.

The young man started reading it and laughed. He got his other friends to create a reading circle, and they took turns passing around ¡Ask a Mexican! and laughing all the way.

Dear Mexican: Why do you say you hate nostalgia, yet write so much about your past?

Hípolito Ain’t No Hypocrite

Dear Wab: Because plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, you pinche pendejo baboso.

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: A mini-presentation given on me before my speech at Saddleback College as part of their first-ever Wordfest OC festival. Great students down here, and great faculty! Can’t wait to see this festival grow…in MISSION VIEJO.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “I’m not worried about Muhammad Ali. He is better equipped than anyone I know to withstand the trials in store for him. What I’m worried about is the rest of us.” — Bill Russell

LISTENING: “Summertime Blues,” Alan Jackson. This song — not this cover, but the Eddie Cochran original — is one of the five earliest songs I remember. Hadn’t heard this version until a couple of months ago, by which time I was already an Alan Jackson fan — funny lyrics, funny delivery, and this video!

READING: “Why Navajos Love Their Country Music”: How did I miss this one when it came out? Always loved to hear Navajo country when I’d pass through I-40 in Arizona on our former road trips — and this anthropologist brings it home complete with some songs.

BUY MY NEW CO-BOOK! People’s Guide to Orange County tells an alternative history of OC through the scholarship and reporting of myself, Elaine Lewinnek, and Thuy Vo Dang. There’ll be signings all year — in meanwhile, buy your copy TODAY. And, yes: I’ll autograph it!

Gustavo Events  

Saturday, Oct. 26-Nov. 10: Here’s where I plug Interview with a Mexican. There are a couple of performances scheduled, but I’m going to be at the one scheduled for Oct. 26 at 8 p.m. My theater year continues — buy your tickets here!

Nov. 16, 1 p.m.: I’m going to be in conversation with the legendary essayist Ilan Stavans, co-author of Sabor Judío: The Jewish Mexican Cookbook, at my wife’s Alta Baja Market, 201 E. 4th St., Ste. 1010, SanTana. There will be books for sale AND snacks to follow. Lecture, FREE; books, BARATO.

Gustavo in the News

“Why is Mexican food so popular in Ireland?”: My taco scholarship gets cited.

“Latinx Files: The economic consequences of mass deportation”: A Los Angeles Times newsletter you should subscribe to plugs a columna of mine.

“The California chefs who pioneered L.A.’s French-Japanese aesthetic”: Another L.A. Times newsletter you should subscribe to plugs a series of mine.

“Taco-Flavored Sarcasm”: If you’re in the Denver area, Interview with a Mexican is playing THIS WEEKEND before they decamp to L.A. Su Teatro kindly features me in their newsletter for the obvious reason.

“Axios Latino”: A newsletter you should subscribe to plugs my huge L.A. Times series.

“Iowa farmers throw out this corn fungus, but in Mexico it's a delicacy”: Two Axios plugs in one week!

“Orange County’s First Black History Book Only Ripens with Time”: The compa Gabriel San Blogman shouts out an article we did for the Infernal Rag long ago…

“Part 120: Kevin de León vs. The Truth – Will the CD-14 Curse Ever Be Broken?“: Legendary whistleblower Zachary Ellison mentions me in a story of his.

“California Playbook”: Politico’s Golden State playbook plugs my latest L.A. Times series.

“Gustavo Arellano's Road Trip”: The Latino Newsletter has me on their podcast.

“Merriam-Webster Dictionary”: OK, I must have a fan in there because they cited me in example sentences for “Holy Grail” and “politico” just this week alone!

“Colorado Arts Spotlight, Oct. 17 – 20: Hamilton, an Indigenous art market and more”: A plug for Interview with a Mexican in Denver.

“California Sun”: The awesome newsletter about all stories California plugged my road trip series.

Gustavo Stories 

“Grítale a Guti”: Latest edition of my Tuesday night IG Live free-for-all.

“Irvine police buys $150K Cybertruck, critics call it unnecessary”: My latest KCRW “Orange County Line” commentary talks about Bren-ville PD’s latest gimmick.

"Caminos del Southwest: A road trip through Latino America”: My latest L.A. Times series — 10 chapters, 16,000 words — dropped on Wednesday. I’m not going to share all the stories here because this canto’s already the longest I’ve ever done, but por favor read them all! KEY QUOTE: “Over seven days, across seven states and nearly 3,000 miles, I checked in with Latinos across the American Southwest about where they are in their lives, not where they’ll be on election day.”

“Kevin de León takes a page from Trump’s playbook at Boyle Heights debate”: My latest L.A. Times columna checkes in on an L.A. city council race free-for-all. KEY QUOTE: “Here was a man who had once showed enough promise and ambition to mount a campaign against U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and to run for mayor in 2022. Now, he was reduced to questioning whether someone faked her COVID diagnosis.”

You made it this far down? Gracias! Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram while you’re down here by clicking on their logos down below. Don’t forget to forward this newsletter to your compadres y comadres! You can’t get me tacos anymore, but you sure as hell can give them — and more — to the O.C. Catholic Worker!