El Norteño is the Jekyll and Hyde of Mexican restaurants. By day, the popular joint courts business types and office workers craving authentic Mexican food at a good price. On weekend nights, the place transforms itself into a true Mexican street scene, enlivening the corner of Seventh Avenue and Roosevelt…

Japon-ese! Hideji Moritoki — Sensei to his friends — is showing off a large “Techniques Car Club” logo etched on his back to a handful of ink aficionados at a tattoo vendor’s booth inside the 25th Annual Arizona Lowrider Super Show. Another tat of a winged Virgin Mary on his…

Virgins in Guadalupe are getting scarce. That’s not a slam on the sexual mores in the tiny Yaqui Indian enclave tucked between Tempe and Phoenix, but a simple statement of fact: Someone keeps stealing paintings of the Virgen de Guadalupe from their place on Baseline Road, and it’s not much…

Ron Cortez has a bean on his shoulder, one that he picked up as a toddler in a coffee plantation in Costa Rica where he was born and, he likes to point out, conceived. In other words, Cortez has coffee in his veins, and he thinks the rest of us…

A recent column on Mexican ballplayers led us to another field of dreams with another set of sun-baked jugadores still chasing the glory days of their youth. If Mexicans are a minority in this country, however, these athletes come from a people that’s a minority south of the border. Yaqui…

We pointed out a few weeks ago that you’ll not only find Mexicans behind the seafood counter at 99 Ranch Market at the Chinese Cultural Center, but that some days most of the customers in the Asian grocery store are speaking Spanish too. Turns out it’s just one of many…

A couple of weeks ago, Chicago Cubs manager Dusty Baker made some startling observations about black and Latino baseball players and high temperatures. And speaking of heat, did Baker ever feel it. A lot of gnashing of teeth over whether Baker’s comments were racist followed his claim that minority ballplayers…

El Portal is just a little place south of the tracks, a Mexican eatery known for its good soups and straightforward Sonoran fare. But step inside, and you realize why it’s known for a lot more than its food. Last week, on a random visit, we sat down while just…

It’s Thursday night at Kahlua’s Bar & Grill in Glendale, and Luis Avilés, a 26-year-old from Sonora, makes like he’s the next Latin superstar. Every night of the week is Mexican karaoke night at the joint on 51st Avenue north of Camelback Road, and Thursdays the place is packed. Tonight,…

Known more for its cocido (beef stew), machaca and green salsa, Pitic Restaurant in south Phoenix on Wednesdays transforms into Mexican fight night. Last week, rows of chairs circled a makeshift stage that was surrounded by a chain link fence — it looked like the night’s action was going to…

Walking into El Sol Mexican Café & Bakery in Chandler, you don’t get the feeling that the panederia was born in the streets. The place is slightly upscale, and the walls are painted in bright yellows, blues and greens and adorned with iguanas and suns. But humble beginnings is exactly…

Somebody finally realized that Latinos enjoy a nice, well-stocked and clean supermarket just like everyone else. And that’s why you’ll find the Valley’s two Ranch Market stores jam-packed with customers. Think of the Ranch Markets as the AJ’s of Mexican grocers, where shoppers pick up their nopales and tortillas and…

“That was the weirdest party I’ve ever been to, man,” says Gustavo Angeles, guitarist for Cascabel, the Afro-Cuban Latin jazz combo that showed up around midnight at Holga’s on a recent Saturday lugging guitars, amps and congas. The small parking lot in front of the downtown artist commune was filled…

At the colorful Mariscos Ensenada restaurant on 59th Avenue and Thomas, owner Oscar Rubio demonstrates how to make a michelada. He takes a salt-rimmed frosty mug filled with ice and adds lime juice, Tapatio salsa, salt, pepper and lots of Clamato — the tangy clam-juice-and-veggie drink that Latinos love. Then…

You have to figure a university president for the PC crowd, but University of Arizona honcho Peter Likins went beyond the pale when he linked the humble tortilla with racial politics. The college jefe could have just said he thought it was tacky that Wildcats heave the food products like…

Talk about returning to your roots — some Latinos are resurrecting old traditions without even realizing it. At least that’s the sense you get talking with people who know what’s going on with the quinceañera, that well-known rite of passage for the daughters of Latin American immigrants on their 15th…

Go to the 99 Ranch Market at the COFCO Chinese Cultural Center and you’ll see foods from several different cultures — Chinese, Japanese, even Indonesian. But the crowd at the back of the store waiting several lines deep for fish might surprise you. The place is filled with Mexicans. On…