gustavo arellano on anti-mexican o.c.

I've posted on this blog before my attraction to Orange County--a place I grew up near, a place I enjoy visiting, and a place that thoroughly intrigues me as a geographer. One of my favorite guides to the happenings in OC is Gustavo Arellano, a regular contributor to the OC Weekly and arguably the premier journalist in Southern California on anything having to do with local Mexican-American culture and politics--especially in the present immigrant-bashing climate, which has made Arellano something of a national celebrity, and deservedly so. Today, Arellano has a typically excellent opinion piece in the LA Times, but he is better known for his humorous (in an often off-color, politically incorrect way) "Ask a Mexican" column in the OCW. I can't recommend his writing more highly. Here's a telling excerpt from today's piece, which details the depth of anti-Mexican racism in OC:

I'm a fourth-generation descendant of naranjeros (orange pickers), barely speak Spanish and am lighter-skinned than most of my gabacho friends. Still, a couple of years ago, I attended a fundraiser at the Balboa Bay Club — the Musso & Frank's for O.C.'s old money, and John Wayne's favorite drinking well — and while I was standing in line for a horrid Mexican buffet, a skinny, prissy thing approached. She asked if I could serve her some beans. I laughed. While I waited for the valet later that night, the same woman asked if I could grab her car. "Not unless you want it on cinder blocks," I replied. My Camry arrived. I paid the $5 charge and slipped the Mexican valet an extra $20.

By the way, gabacho is just one of many local-Spanish/Spanglish words that one will pick up from reading Arellano's work. Kind of like "gringo", it's Mexican-Spanish slang for an English-speaking "white" person, but it really carries the more specific connotation of a white USAmerican--particularly one with a personal identity and political orientation tied closely to the idea of a monolithic Anglo-American norm, as opposed to a more multicultural orientation, and thus displaying immense historical and geographical ignorance about the diverse and plentiful contributions of brown-skinned, Spanish speakers (not to mention other non-Anglo ethnicities) to USAmerican culture and society. I don't know the full history or etymology of the word, but my understanding is that it derives from centuries-old pejorative slang used in Spain to describe someone from France, in particular peasants in the Pyrenees. Given the history of French occupation of Mexico during the 1860s, it's understandable that the same word would evolve with additional political freight here in the Americas. Another useful source for the ever-evolving worlds of modern slang is the on-line urban dictionary.