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 Entertainment | Books | October 2007 
'ˇAsk a Mexican!' Walks a Bold but Delicate Satirical Line
 Sam McManis - Sacramento Bee
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| | Gustavo Arellano has had the full range of reactions to his "ˇAsk a Mexican!" column, which is largely humor and affectionate but also addresses underlying serious issues. (LATimes/Robert Lachman) |
What began as a lark, a total journalistic goof, in the pages of the alternative OC Weekly three years ago has unexpectedly catapulted the career of Gustavo Arellano.
Arellano, 28, pens the satirical "ˇAsk a Mexican!" column that now appears in 28 papers, including the Sacramento News & Review. It reaches an estimated 1.8 million readers.
His book of the same name (Scribner, $20, 256 pages) was released over the summer; Arellano will be in Sacramento on Sunday to do a reading at Time Tested Books.
But hanging out at bookstores is not the only place you'll see Arellano these days. He's become something of a media celebrity.
In the past five months he's talked with ABC's Diane Sawyer about Mexican novellas, chatted with CNN's Rick Sanchez about immigration, opined on NBC's "Today" show about Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and hosted a special for MTV Tr3s – a bilingual channel on digital cable.
It seems everybody wants to, well, ask a Mexican.
We had a few questions for Arellano.
Q:"ˇAsk a Mexican!" has just turned into this incredibly lucrative – well, at least popular – phenomenon. How did it get started?
A: (OC Weekly's) former editor Will Swaim, in November of 2004, saw a billboard of El Piolín (Spanish-language DJ Eddie Sotelo). In this ad, El Piolín is wearing a Viking helmet and had long hair – typical goofy Piolín.
Will comes back to me and asks me who this guy is. He said that guy seemed as if you could ask him a question about Mexicans and he'd be able to answer it. So why don't we do a joke column? We were trying to make a comment about how crazy the immigration war in Orange County is.
Q: So it was satire, right?
A: Exactly. I made up a question: Why do Mexicans call white people gringos? My answer was, "Only gringos call gringos gringos; Mexicans call gringos gabachos." At the end, to goad people, we said, "Hey, got a spicy question about Mexicans? Ask a Mexican."
Q: What was the reaction?
A: We knew we'd get some reaction because the logo for the column is the grossest stereotype of a Mexican. But people went crazy about it, both in a good way and bad way. What we didn't expect, though, was for people to actually start sending in questions about Mexicans. They called us on our bluff.
Q: Was there angry early reaction from Latinos?
A: Everywhere where the column has debuted, the reaction has been the same, including with the News & Review. E-mails ranged from "What is this?" to "This is the funniest thing ever" to "You're demeaning Latinos." And not just Latinos said that. It was good, white liberals writing in, too.
Q: People didn't get the joke?
A: Satire is the hardest form of humor to do. ... After a couple of months in Orange County, the column became accepted. And that's the way it's been in every city where it runs.
Q: Like you, I grew up in Orange County. And knowing the conservative mentality of some people there, I wonder whether you had to wear a Kevlar vest after this column started.
A: I already had been an investigative reporter at the paper, and you have to have a thick skin. One of the issues I covered was immigration, so I was used to anti-immigrant, Orange County whack jobs leaving me rambling messages. In doing the column, I was ready for all the hate coming my way. As long as people are reading, I'm doing my job.
Q: So much for the hate. Is it also weird to bask in all the love you've gotten for this column? You're on CNN, NPR, ABC, NBC ...
A: And "The Colbert Report."
Q: How was the "Colbert" experience?
A: It was one of the best experiences of my life. They flew me out there to New York (and I stayed) in a nice hotel for three days.
While I was in the green room, Colbert himself gives me this swag bag with goodies like a six-pack of wine, a three-pack of vodka, hangover pills that don't work, granola bars for some bizarre reason, and a tote bag. He comes up, shakes my hand and says, "Just to let you know, I play a professional idiot."
Q: Wow. You've arrived.
A: Honestly, I'm still astounded. We really expected the column just to be an O.C. thing. I never thought any other newspaper would have the guts to carry it. Everything changed in February 2006, when the L.A. Times did a big story on me. ... It became mainstream. After that, other newspapers came to me, wanting to run the column.
In a way, it's scary that Mexicans still remain such a mystery, such an exotic species, to so many people. I could either weep and moan about how misunderstood we are or I could do something about it and have fun.
Q: So you have a somewhat serious message?
A: Satire is a way of being outrageous to make a bigger point. Think of the great satirists – Jonathan Swift, my hero, Mark Twain, Colbert, Dave Chappelle. You laugh at them, but you don't think of them as comedians. You think of the message underneath. Sometimes, I'll be silly. But the underlying message is that this Mexican invasion, so to speak, that people whine about is not an invasion. Mexicans are no different than any previous wave of immigrants.
Q: So you're saying that, back in the early 1900s, my great-grandfather could've written an "Ask an Irishman" column.
A: Exactly. One of my favorite questions, which is in the book, is a guy asking, "Why don't Mexicans want to learn English? Are they too stupid?" I answered: "The U.S. government shares your concerns. They released a 42-page study saying that the new wave of immigrants are idiots who come to this country to make money and send it back to the motherland. They don't want to assimilate and, in fact, we should clamp down and deport a lot of them."
That rhetoric sounds familiar. But that report (to the U.S. Senate) was called the Dillingham Commission and it came out in 1911. The "idiot" immigrants weren't the Irish anymore – it was the Italians, Poles and Slavic immigrants. It shows that immigrants have always been hated.
Q: Are there some questions you just won't touch?
A: I answer two questions a week, and if no one sent in any more questions, I have enough material to last at least six years. ... I have a backlog of questions that's 200 pages. So to make sure the column stays interesting, I have to vary the questions. If all I answered were immigration questions, the column would get boring really quick. If all the questions were about sex, it'd get boring fast, too. I have to vary it.
Q: Since you have this backlog, though, you could keep "ˇAsk a Mexican!" going for years. Will there come a point when you say, "That's enough"?
A: At this point, I love doing this. I'd like to say I'll continue the column until it doesn't need to be done. But at this rate, it'll be the rest of my life until Mexicans are finally accepted.
Q: How do you break down the questions you get from different ethnic groups?
A: I break them down by the topics. Not all the questions white people ask are racist. Not even close. But some of the most racist questions I've received have been from Mexicans themselves, talking about African Americans. Some nasty stuff.
Now, I'm trying to show that Mexicans are no different than anyone else. But that's not to say I'm going to apologize for everything Mexicans do. If a Mexican sends in a stupid question, I'm going to smack them as much as I would a racist gabacho.
Gustavo Arellano
What: Reading from his book "ˇAsk a Mexican!"
When: 3:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Time Tested Books, 1114 21st St.
Information: (916) 447-5696 or timetestedbooks.net |
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