Pirates Pat McGroin and The Right Reverend One Eye
It depends on what your definition of "pirate" is. If you're looking for a famous swashbuckler from the days of Blackbeard, tough tamales: Historians never bothered to glorify the numerous buccaneers who ransacked Spanish galleons laden with the gold and silver of Mexican mines off the Mexican coast. The most famous Mexican pirate was Fermin Mundaca, who operated a contraband empire from the island of Islas Mujeres off the coast of Quintana Roo during the mid-1800s — but Mundaca was a Spanish native. Why look back in the past, though, when so many Mexican pirates exist in the present? Piratería is as Mexican an industry as tortilla-making and immigrant-smuggling. The International Federation of Phonographic Industry, an international organization that fights music piracy worldwide, estimates Mexicans make more than $220 million off of illegal CDs, most sold at the nearest swap meet, bodega or taco truck near you. And before some of you readers start insinuating that such a startlingly large amount is somehow indicative of the Mexican culture's tendency to steal, what would you call file-sharing?
Do Mexicans get annoyed that whenever a Hollywood movie calls for
a Mexican character actor, Cheech Marin gets the job? This is great for
Cheech, but must be bad for Mexican actors struggling to land a good
part in Hollywood. Danny Trejo gets the badass roles, Antonio Banderas
gets the leading man roles, and character roles go to Cheech (in case
of a small budget, maybe Tommy Chong, but he's cast more for being an
old stoner than Mexican). With the blooming careers of truly great
Mexican directors Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro, don't
you think Hollywood should give some other Mexicans a chance in the
limelight? Cheech is already rich — let someone else have a slice
of the pie!
Celluloid Culero
No argument from me, except Tommy Chong and Antonio Banderas ain't Mexican!
If we stereotype a person by drawing attention to the fact that
someone is Mexican instead of the content of their actions, why do
minority cultures celebrate the very fact that, say, Mexicans fought
for certain types of rights? Aren't they stereotyping themselves by
doing so? If I did the same thing as a white person, I'd be considered
racist. So, why aren't you considered racist as well?
14/88
I've contestado many a silly question in this column, but yours takes the pastel as the stupidest I've yet answered. What Know-Nothings such as yourself don't understand is that when minority groups struggle for civil rights, they're merely calling America on its founding bluff — you know, that whole "all men are created equal" bullshit.
So, when Mexican parents in Orange County in the 1940s sued four school districts for segregating Mexican kiddies away from gabachitos, the parents didn't do it just to benefit wabs; the resulting lawsuit, Mendez vs. Westminster, served as a precedent to the much-more-famous Brown vs. Board of Education. When Cesar Chavez marched and fasted for justice in the fields, his ultimate causa was the same as European unionists at the turn of the 20th century: a fair shake for the working man. When millions march for amnesty for the undocumented, it's a protest against a hypocritical, Byzantine immigration system that entangles all foreigners, not just Mexicans. Whites fighting for "white" rights only shows how freaked some gabachos get about realizing that minorities are actually, finally being treated like Americans. If trying to battle hate makes me a racist, then here's a Roman salute to your face, pendejo.
