Columbia City Paper

WHO IS THE MEXICAN?
I’m Gustavo Arellano. I was born in Anaheim, California, to a tomato canner and an illegal immigrant. My ¡Ask a Mexican! column won the 2006 Association of Alternative Newsweeklies award for the best column in a largecirculation weekly. I’m a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times and have appeared on Today, Nightline, NPR’s On the Media, The Situation with Tucker Carlson, and The Colbert Report. I also mow lawns for $15 – $10 if I get a water break.
 City Paper welcomes Gustavo Arellano and feel free to send your questions to themexican@askamexican.net

Dear Mexican,

My friend and I were wondering why Mexican girls are so beautiful
when they are teenagers, then over the years, they become fat, old bags?

Mark M.

Costa Mesa

Dear Gabacho,

Get your facts straight. Women raised in Mexico who migrate
here maintain their beauty forever�check out pictures of silent-film goddess
Dolores del Río, who gave men palos even into her 80s. Their hijas,
on the other hand, are the ones who blow up into blimps. The difference? A Mexican
mom�s 18-hour workday�the mopping and kid-rearing for other families and hers,
the factory-working, and the husband�s lunch preparing�keeps the flab off; any
thickness is muscle earned from repetitive work that would crumble a weightlifter.
The daughters, meanwhile, are as American as you, gabacho: they�re spoiled,
fat asses who party hard, overeat and don�t do quehaceres (chores) after
coming home from a day at the office or Chicano Studies class because they have
a Mexican to do it�their mami.

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