Dear Mexican: An uninsured wetback just hit my car and totaled his. He had no insurance and no license, but did have a nice cell phone. I asked him, in my limited Spanish, if he was OK, but he did not ask about me or my children. He was handcuffed and taken away to be booked for one hour to get his real ID. This incident will cost me hundreds of dollars even with my insurance. My insurance company tells me 60 percent of accidents in California are with uninsured Mexican drivers. Why don’t they just take buses like I did when I couldn’t afford a car? —Stranded with no Rental Insurance
Dear Gabacho: Yeah, you really care if the man who rammed into you was OK when you smirk at his cell phone and call him a wetback (and real pronto, readers: please eliminate that word from your Rolodex of Racism. Like “beaner,” it’s so 1950s. Use “wab” or the cooler-sounding Spanish translation, mojado). Cry me a pinche río.
The Insurance Research Council’s Uninsured Motorists, 2008 Edition estimated only 18 percent of Californians drive uninsured; the 1998 study, California’s Uninsured, by the Policy Research Bureau of the California Department of Insurance did determine 35 percent of Latinos had no insurance but didn’t bother to figure out whether they caused the majority of accidents. Both studies showed that the rate of insured drivers in California and the United States had actually increased over the years.
With regards to your actual question: uninsured Mexicans drive cars the same reason uninsured non-Mexicans do—the buses are too overcrowded with Mexicans.
I live outside of Tucson, Ariz., a big city only about 50 miles north of the la frontera. Every year, we celebrate the birthday of the town, and always a major attraction is our famous Spanish mission built by the Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino, a Jesuit extraordinaire of German extraction, along with uncounted native Tohono O’Odam. This mission is named Mission San Xavier. It is always pronounced San Ha-Veer, very heavy with the H. So, why do teachers who have students with the name Xavier always pronounce it Zay – Vee – Irr? (Or does my question go the other way around)? —Old Native Just Asking
Dear Gabacho: For being a self-proclaimed Old Pueblo native, you sure are a pendejo. Father Kino was of Italian extraction (though born in the Austrian Empire), and the mission’s full name is San Xavier del Bac, named after Society of Jesus (better known as the Jesuits) founder St. Francis Xavier (so named because he was from the town of Javier in the Basque country).
As to your pregunta: you’re just hearing the Spanish and English pronunciations. The English version of the letter x almost always sounds like the letter z at the beginning of words; la letra x at the beginning of Spanish words is almost always aspirated like the letter j.
La respuesta: While the English were going through their Great Vowel Shift toward the end of the Middle Ages, los Españoles decided to follow their own route to ensure confusions among future generations of gabachos—just another grievance alongside the Reconquista and uninsured Mexicans, you know?
Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, myspace.com/ocwab, facebook.com/garellano, find him on, Twitter, or write via snail mail at: Gustavo Arellano, P.O. Box 1433, Anaheim, CA 92815-1433.
