Ask a Mexican: What Do Mexicans Think About NFL Players Kneeling During the National Anthem?

Dear Mexican: With all these NFL players kneeling for the national anthem, how do the Mexicans feel about this? Do they still resent the United States for robando their territory, or do they appreciate the U.S. and its oportunidades?

Jerry Juero Jones

Dear JJJ: Both—but none of those feelings have anything to do with how we feel about Colin Kaepernick and the movement he inspired.

Frankly, Mexicans LOVE those kneel-downs, because we’re all about inconvenient protests that make gabachos angry. Whether it’s undocumented students chaining themselves together while shielding their handcuffs with PVC pipe and laying down in busy intersections, or hundreds of thousands of us taking to the streets in 2006 to demand amnesty, or hundreds of our youth waving around the Mexican flag in the face of good liberals who beg them to wave the Stars and Stripes, Mexicans know the power of pissing off the powers that be. Sure, you’re going to be unpopular in the short run, and even turn off potential supporters, but it’s all about the long game. And the juego largo is to bring pride to your side—to let the world know you’re no longer content with being peons or house slaves, and to inspire others to be unafraid of your minority status.

Besides, Mexicans are a forgiving lot: All our sports stars have to do is win, and all is forgiven. Hell, gabachos are worse—what else explains all the fans who go see the Penn State Nittany Lions football squad? Or the continued popularity of R. Kelly?

Dear Mexican: Is there such a thing as “reverse racism” anymore? Or have you and other “minorities” gained enough clout, sympathy and numbers in this country to admit that it is just called blatant racism now? 

Pinche Gringo

Dear Gabacho: Donald Trump is president, and he’s killing Puerto Rico. Oh, and #fucktrump.

Dear Mexican: Why is that Mexicans put every cheap accessory from Pep Boys or Kragen on their trucks? I mean, the cars that they drive started the lowrider thing, and those are so cool—but the trucks look like a JC Whitney catalog gone crazy. There’s no style, rhyme or reason: Turbo stickers on a truck with a straight-six motor. Fiberglass fender flares of different colors with chrome edges added as an afterthought.

You know exactly what I am talking about. Not that I disapprove—to each their own on customizing … just wondering.

TC in South OC

Dear Gabacho: Don’t forget the bull stickers, or the bull huevos hanging from the rear, or the silhouette sticker of Chalino loading one of his guns, or—for our Central American hermanos—that sticker of a cherubic boy wearing baggy pants and a floppy backward baseball cap who is waving the flag of a particular country. To each their own on customizing, indeed.

But ain’t it funny how when gabachos do haphazard decorations on their vehicles, it’s called Kustom Kulture, and gets books and museum retrospectives—but when Mexicans do it, the cops pull them over? Typical gabacho hypocrisy. Besides, Rat Fink don’t got nada on Calvin pissing on “LA MIGRA,” cabrón.

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net; be his fan on Facebook; follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano; or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano!