Modern-day piracy, Mexican style

Dear Mexican,

My wife and I have an argument going on about pirates. And since
you are the source for all things Mexican, I’d thought I’d ask: While I
know there were Spanish and Portuguese pirates back in the early 1600s
and 1700s, were there ever any Mexican pirates? Not pirates from Spain
who pirated in Mexico, but real honest-to-hay-soos Mexican pirates?
Would be interesting to know!

Pirates Pat McGroin and
The Right Reverend One Eye

Dear Gabachos,

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 to 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 the
Phonographic Industry, an organization that fights music piracy
worldwide, estimates that 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?

Dear Mexican,

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

Dear Gabacho,

No argument from me, except Tommy Chong and Antonio Banderas ain’t
Mexican!

Dear 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

Dear Gabacho,

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
César Chávez marched and fasted for justice in the
fields, his ultimate causa was the same as that of 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.

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net,
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Box 1433, Anaheim, CA 92815-1433!