BY GUSTAVO ARELLA¡¡NO

Dear Mexican: U.S.A citizens are sick and tired that for more than 40 years, Latin American elites have lived like monarchs because they pimp their poor to American businesses for cheap labor that American taxpayers have been forced to subsidize with health care, food, housing, education, and so forth costing taxpayers trillions of dollars annually. Meanwhile, our infrastructure, education and health care systems have deteriorated because our government spent our tax dollars supporting Latin America’s poor citizens. It’s way past the time for our government to tell Latin American government-elites to end their caste system and take care of their own people; we refuse to continue the travesty. It would be beautiful to see Latin American people given the opportunity to have a good life in their home country rather than leave their families and risk their lives to become part of the underclass in the U.S.A! Why do you support this modern-day slavery?

—Please Remember Americans Vent Damn Always

Dear PRAVDA: Chingao, where to begin? Let’s start with labels—– this is ¡Ask a Mexican!, not ¡Ask a Latin American! Questioners: por favor remember this small detail; if you send me questions about Latinos, I’ll forward them to Carlos Mencia so he can duh-duh-duh them to death. Next up are your lies. For one, even the Federation for American Immigration Reform, one of the preeminent Know Nothing think tanks and an organization predisposed to project worst-case scenarios, estimates “the annual net cost of illegal immigrants (after subtracting their tax payments) to the American taxpayer is likely to be more than $45 billion”—– a lot of dinero, but hardly the trillions you claim. And Latin American elites have lived like monarchs since…well, forever—– that’s why they’re elites, silly! Ever heard of the Monroe Doctrine? Read up on it, and spare me your interventionist pendejadas. Drop the class-warrior rhetoric—– you sound like a Chicano Studies major, except whinier and with less logic. Finally, your slavery question begs la pregunta: is our present peculiar institution, as insane as it is for both sides, slavery? Not in the Mexican’s book: illegals have free will to leave this country (except in a couple of cases; visit ciw-online.org for more details about true tragedies in the fields) but don’t due to America’s unquenched thirst for higher profits and cheaper costs—– and if this smacks of Marxist drivel, then I suggest you tune in to Lou Dobbs tonight for more of it.

While at an art gallery, a female friend seemed to shrivel at the sight of people sipping wine in huge glasses. She leaned over and whispered, “I am so out of my Mexican comfort zone.” Is she just crazy or is there some logic behind her statement? Please enlighten us. —

Brownie Bourgie

Dear Wab: What’s with the whiners this week? I’ve heard your amiga’s line muchos times from assimilated Mexicans in different situations—– university classrooms, workplace, new neighborhoods—– and my response is always the same: get over yourselves. Yes, Mexicans are going places we’ve rarely visited in a non-janitorial situation, but that’s a cause for celebration, not brown guilt. Stride with pride, o pioneers! If you don’t feel comfortable surrounded by gabachos, leave or smuggle in a couple of cousins to get the fiesta started. And if it makes your friend feel any better, Brown Bourgie, those gabachos that freaked her out so probably also hyperventilated at the thought of a non-peon wab in their midst.

Love your wit and witticisms! If I weren’t already engaged to a muy guapo mexicano, I’d tell you “¡Llamame pa’’tras!” How is it that you always manage to one-up your readers? —– ¡Llamame!

Dear Call Me: I get the last word. Plus, daily doses of Chocomil.

Gustavo Arellano is an investigative reporter on staff at the OC Weekly in Orange County, California. His “¡Ask a Mexican!” column began in 2004 and today is syndicated in 32 publications nationwide. He is also the author of a book by the same name. An extensive interview with Arellano can be found in the EW archives online for Nov. 29, 2007. Arellano can be contacted at TheMexican@AskAMexican.net