Dear Mexican: In Philadelphia, there are three Spanish-language stations on regular broadcast television. None of them offer English subtitles. I bet plenty of people of all heritages would like to check out Spanish-language television or the news from Central America or whatever, if we could get subtitles. I called one…

Dear Readers: U.K.’s spectacular Guardian newspaper has asked if I could field some questions for their readers as part of the paper’s summer travel package — turns out Brits want to know more about Mexican food! Let’s be benevolent toward those buggerers: Their idea of what our comida constitutes comes…

Dear Mexican: Like many Americans, I’ve heard about the “Fast and Furious” scandal in which our own ATF was shown to be corrupt and guilty of supplying guns that ended up in the hands of the drug cartels. I also recently saw a report about the violence in Mexico, and…

Dear Mexican: Where did the notion of adding an -o to the end of an English word and assuming it makes it a Spanish word come from? Juanito Dear Wab: “Anglos have long held power in making Spanish and Spanish-speaking culture invisible,” writes University of South Florida foreign language professor…

Dear Mexican: Why is it that people from Chihuahua and Monterrey are such jackasses? They cross the border and act as if their cagada does not stink. They eat at all-you-can-eat $6.99 buffets and still want to take a plate to go for their abuela and primos. They stay at…

Dear Mexican: I was struck by something you said in a recent column about how Mexicans can make Americans like Mexicans: “We called ourselves Spanish, we considered ourselves white.” I’m Mexican, and I consider myself “white” because I’m not black or red or Asian. People from Spain are Caucasian. But…

Dear Mexican: I have always liked ranchera music. As of late, I have wanted to get deeper into it as far as the history, the culture and especially the songs and lyrics. I was wondering if you know a good book or two or website that I can check out…

Dear Mexican: What do we need to do to make the güeros understand we come in peace? As Mexicans, we are from this great American continent as well, but in the average close-minded English-speaking folks’ definition of “American,” it’s amusing to see they don’t understand what it really means, being…

Dear Mexican: We’re in state testing this week at the high school I teach at. After the students finish a section, they can only sit and read or just sit. I did an experiment: I chose the cholo-est, tatted, pierced non-reader and dropped your book on their desk. Students who…

Dear Mexican: Please explain to me why so many mexicanas seem to think it more important to stay home and baby-sit than to attend school (so that they may become more in life than producers of offspring). As an educator, I have faced “absent on account of child care” as…

Dear Mexican: About six years ago, my wife and I adopted a little baby boy. He is “pure” mestizo and we are complete wabs. I’m a little dark because of my mixed Arab heritage, but my wife is a major league blanca. He is a sweet little gabacho growing up…

Dear Mexican: I’m living in Mexico part of the year. I’m learning Spanish but can’t say I understand or speak it well. I’m curious about a phrase on a T-shirt in an expensive shop in Puerto Vallarta. It had interesting artwork on it and the phrase “Soy Como la Chingada…

Dear Mexican: I would be interested in hearing your point of view regarding our raza always voting for someone with a Latino last name, without even considering if the vato/vata is qualified for a particular office. Often I hear comments like, “If he is Latino, it makes up for all…

Dear Readers: The Mexican is currently dealing with deportation issues but will return next week once he builds his 15-foot escalera to climb over that pesky 14-foot wall. In the meanwhile, here are some oldies-but-goodies. Dear Mexican: It seems that whenever Chicano professors want to show off their mexicanidad, they…

Dear Mexican: You mentioned in the past that your dad is against illegal immigration, but that’s a voice you never hear. Why aren’t the legal immigrants and legal aliens “vocally outraged” about the illegals who drive down wages, drive up housing prices, use government services, give all immigrants a bad…

Dear Mexican: You have defended illegal immigrants by arguing that they will do the jobs gabachos won’t do for the same wages. I agree. I have a white-collar job, so I’m totally content to benefit from the low prices brought about by an uneducated underclass unprotected by American labor laws,…

Dear Mexican: I’m 39. My stepdad — who raised me — just died. This freed my mother to tell me (Stepdad always forbade it) that the man I thought was my biological father all this time was not. The man who IS my biological father is Mexican. What does finding…

Dear Mexican: The pinche Republicans are making a gigante ruido about their “Hispanic” senators in Congress. Wachale! Let’s call a pendejo a pendejo. Please discuss with tu audienca what Mexicans really think about Cubans in these Estados Unidos. El Güero Tejano (no Cubano) As a recent transplant from Miami to…

Dear Mexican: Grammar question/rant. If Spanglish is a legitimate dialect/language, why do you feel the need to italicize every instance of code switching? I seriously doubt that when you speak you emphasize every puta palabra (emphasis intended here), but that’s what your article reads like. We all know that you…

Dear Mexican: In 1983 or 1984, I was walking home from work down Haight Street in San Francisco and stopped into Watusi Records to look through the dollar cutout bin. I flipped through it for a bit and then stopped dead when I saw the Jonny Chingas Pachuco LP. I…

Dear Mexican: How do you think it’s fair that all the people that come to our country and stay get treated far better than some of the people who have busted their butt all their lives here? You people take all the white man’s jobs and leave us wondering how…

Dear Mexican: What is it about Mexicans and collecting old cars? I have three Mexican neighbors with middle-class incomes but in each case, when the old car or truck wouldn’t run anymore, they would buy a nearly new replacement and then just let the old clunker sit in the driveway…