Canto CCCLXXIX: How I Became a Bona Fide Certified Kentucky Colonel

Or: Eastbound and Brown, Jack

Author

Gustavo Arellano
March 08, 2025

Gentle cabrones:

The years come, the years go, and things come all of a sudden and became such a part of who you are that you forget that at one time, you were not that. All of this to say that last month was the 10-year anniversary of me becoming a bona fide certified Kentucky Colonel, a rank I still hold today. 

How the hell does a Mexican with glasses from Anacrime get any right to have to do anything with the Bluegrass State, let alone achieve the highest honorary title bestowed by the commonwealth?

Glad you asked!

As an eighth grader, I found the music of Bill Monroe. In my 20s, I gravitated toward bourbon because it’s strong and bitter with a tiny bit of sweetness – a metaphor for me!

Yeah, no.

In 2008, my honey decided she wanted to experience the World‘s Longest Yard Sale, a four-day rummaging extravaganza held the first weekend in August that stretches from Gadsden, Alabama all the way to Michigan. We would only do the section from Frankfort, Kentucky down to Chattanooga, Tennessee. That first year, I drove my parents’ Yukon with my best friend Art and his now-wife — eastbound and brown, Jack.

It was supposed to be a leisurely drive until the air conditioning broke the day before we were supposed to leave. Ever been to Kentucky in the late summer without air conditioning in your car? We hadn’t, but we didn’t want to find out how it feels. So we delayed our start by a day, then took off for I-40 from SanTana at 3 in the morning. I sped nonstop for maybe 25 hours – at some point around Rolla, Missouri, I told Art I needed to pull over to the side of the road and he needed to drive because I was about to die.

We ended up in Louisville a couple of hours to wait for Delilah’s flight at a hipster cafe. That was the first time we were ever not served because we were Mexicans — and yet I learned to love Kentucky

Louisville is a gorgeous city, even as it’s one of the most racially stratified in the country (it remains the only part of the South where I’ve experienced discrimination). Central Kentucky was out of a rancho libertarian dream, even as Confederate flags flew. Even when my honey got scared because a guy in Liberty was walking around tables with what looked like a .44 on his waist, I didn’t flinch. Kentucky was Zacatecas with a Scots-Irish drawl, banjos instead of tamborazo, smaller mountains and more water.

How the hell did I know about Stephen Foster in second grade? I did!

My honey and I returned every year for a decade, driving to Louisville in two days to stay a full week in Kentucky before heading down to Tennessee. And we did it during a time of a changing South. I started noticing combo platter palaces give way to taquerias give way to breakfast burrito spots give way to alta cocina.

There was a story happening — but how could I tell it outside of the Infernal Rag?

I get a badge and sticker every year for making a modest donation to the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels, which does great nonprofit work. I should start wearing these!

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In 2012, the Southern Foodways Alliance invited me to give a presentation on Mexican food in the South. I must’ve impressed them, because then I was asked to contribute to their quarterly publication, Gravy, where I eventually started a columna called Good Ol’ Chico. In 2015, I went to Louisville in the winter to conduct oral histories of Mexican restaurants in Kentucky, which you can still find here.

It was thrilling work, because I was talking to true pioneers. I met Josefina Ramirez, owner of Taquería and Tortillería Ramirez in Lexington, Kentucky, who told me that she remembered in the 1980s how there was only one Spanish-language Catholic mass offered in the entire state once a month and she said you could count all the Mexicans in bluegrass country at that point in the parish basement. We did the interview at her restaurant, which was in the area of Lexington called Mexington because there was so many Mexicans there by that point.

Two people helped guide me to the best stories: Steven Alvarez, my compa who’s now at St. John’s but back then was at the University of Kentucky (he’s the genius who created the concept of “taco literacy” — that you can read all the narratives of the taco if you only care to examine it), and Christine Ehrick, an Orange County girl who ended up being a Latin America history professor at the University of Louisville. I struck up a friendship with the two, and each invited me to speak at their respective campuses about my work on Mexican food — Profe Steven in 2014, and Profe Christine in 2015.

My lectures were well received, but with all due respect to my compa, my comadre offered the biggest surprise. When I was done with my lecture at U of L, Profe Christine’s boss presented me a large framed certificate stating that through the grace of then-Gov. Steve Beshear, I was now a bona fide certified Kentucky colonel for my work on Mexican food in the state — HWUT.

Next to my induction into the Orange Coast College Alumni Hall of Fame, easily the best award I’ve ever received.

I became an even better ambassador for the state. My honey and I regaled people back in OC with our travels. I introduced the fabulous brandy label Copper & Kings to the alcohol geniuses at Hi-Time Wine Cellar in Costa Mexico and Mellow Gold corn whisky to the finest bars in SanTana. We even whispered about maybe buying a second home in Kentucky, where the real estate prices back then were preposterously low — I’ll never forget how there was a two-story house next to a river on five acres outside Danville for about $350,000.

Bourbon Trail? My honey even wanted to host our own tours for them, because we had seen Kentucky transform from just a handful of distilleries to dozens of them.

What I didn’t know during our adventures was how soon those days would be gone.

In 2018, our annual road trip to the World’s Longest Yard Sale was limited to the Chattanooga area on account of my mami’s illness — and the only reason we did it is so we could appear on NBC Nightly News in a closing segment that made Lester Holt smile. We repeated the abbreviated journey in 2019 so Nelcyn could experience it (Chattanooga is also a cool city).

Travel was impossible to the South because of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. We’ve been too busy to return in the years since. I returned to Kentucky in 2022 for a Southern Foodways Project about barbacoa around Bowling Green that I offered as an article and a lecture — but I’m not sure when will be the next time.

I miss Kentucky. I miss the long drive out there, the wonderful food and drinks, the friends we made. And that’s why I do like to share — whenever relevant — that I’m a bona fide certified Kentucky Colonel. Why, my name on Twitter is Col. Gustavo Arellano – it’s always hilarious to get haters of mine accusing me of stolen valor, considering I say what kind of colonel I am on my biography. Pendejos

It’s an honor I wear proudly – it shows really that anything is possible even when you’re not looking for it if you’re doing the WERK. That people are noticing what you do, even if they don’t say it always. That you do the WERK not for recognition but because it’s righteous and holy. And if you get a recognition along the way? Even better, but not the reason to do it in the first place.

There is no full list of all the current Kentucky Colonels, but the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels — the nonprofit arm that raises money from us — sends out an annual report that lists all the good work it’s done for that year along with who has donated how much. I’m one of the precious few Latino Kentucky Colonels — I need to help change that.

How the hell does a Mexican with glasses from Anacrime get any right to have to do anything to do with the Bluegrass State, let alone achieve the highest honorary title bestowed by the commonwealth?

As Chavela Vargas one said when asked what right did she have being a Mexican given she’s from Costa Rica — nosotros los coroneles kentuqueños nacemos donde se nos da la chingada gana.

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

Photo by NelCYN

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: AWESOME taco árabe from Los Originales Tacos Arabes de Puebla off Atlantic Boulevard in Eastlos near the 5 freeway.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “If my uniform doesn’t get dirty, I haven’t done anything in the baseball game” — Ricky Henderson

LISTENING: “La Guaracha Sabrosona,” Alberto Pedraza. Sonidero legend Ángel Pedraza died last month, but I think I’ve shared Grupo Kual before, so here’s one of the songs that made his family famous. Such a loss, and a reminder for me to get my Canto playlist up already!

READING: “The Book of my Enemy Has Been Remaindered”: This Clive James poem is one of the pettiest things I’ve ever read — and don’t forget, I used to work with Commie Girl. But this, unlike that, is BRILLIANT, funny, and humble. Man, I haven’t read something with such anticipation for the next turn since O. Henry.

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  

March 8, 1 p.m. aka TODAY: I’ll be in conversation with artist Alicia Rojas about her new project, “Poderosas,” which is part oral history, part sculpture and part photo book about the women who help Latino Health Access save lives. Will be at the 18th Street Arts Center, 1639 18th Street, Santa Monica. Event is FREE.

March 13, 7 p.m.: I’m going to moderate a panel for “What Alliances Do We Need in Perilous Times?” on how groups are uniting to rebuild after the Pacific Palisades and Eaton fires. It’ll be held by Zócalo Public Square at ASU California Center Broadway 1111 S. Broadway Los Angeles. Event is FREE, but you gotta RSVP.

March 22, 9 a.m.: Join me and one of my co-authors of A People’s Guide to Orange County as we do a tour of downtown SanTana! Tickets are $20 but completely worth it — buy here.

May, 9 a.m.: Join me and one of my co-authors of A People’s Guide to Orange County as we do a tour of Anacrime! Tickets are $20 but completely worth it — buy here.

Gustavo in the News

“Should Latino/Hispanic Caucuses be Bi-Partisan?”: A Substack newsletter you should subscribe to plugs a columna of mine.

“The LA Times’ Political Rating “AI” Is A Silly Joke Aimed At Validating Wealthy Media Ownership’s Inherent Bias”: An article that presupposed something published underneath a columna of mine…

“It only took a day for LA Times' new AI tool to sympathize with the KKK”: …and this one, but at least Farley Elliott reached out for comment!

Gustavo Stories 

“Grítale a Guti”: Latest edition of my Tuesday night IG Live free-for-all is a lost episode — had to be there!

“Labor law change confuses CA nail salon industry”: My latest KCRW “Orange County Line” commentary talks about an assembly bill from Little Saigon.

“Pseuds Corner”: My suggestion for the regular Private Eye columna about horribly overwrought writing appeared in this week’s edition, which is this: “Like a dish of quinoa and kale that you may once have forced down and now actively enjoy, a woman of color could, you think, raise your game, supplying something like antiracist roughage." Appeared in the New York Times — BARF

“Some words about my honey”: I take over Alta Baja Market’s newsletter to praise my media chica and urge everyone to buy from small businesses in these tough times more than ever. It’s an email-only newsletter, so sign up here.

“How California helped Trump make English the official national language”: My latest L.A. Times columna talks the history behind Donald Trump’s latest xenophobic executive order. KEY QUOTE: “Our growing embrace of English — one part classroom instruction but mostly marathon Saturday morning cartoon sessions for the kids and Charles Bronson movies for my parents — wasn’t the only thing Hayakawa and his crew were wrong about.”

“Did AI really defend the KKK at the end of my column? Let’s discuss”: My next latest L.A. Times columna addresses all the articles above. KEY QUOTE: “Why, if you ignore the AI pendejada enough, it could very well pick up its digital football and go home.”

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!