Are burritos supposed to explode?

Dear Mexican:

In the past, you have defended illegal immigrants by arguing that they (paraphrasing one of your previous columns) will do the jobs gabachos won’t do for the same wages. I agree. I have a white-collar job, so I’m totally content to benefit from the low prices brought about by an uneducated, underclass, unprotected by American labor laws person, content in the knowledge that no Mexican will ever take mi trabajo. But now this Dream Act comes along, encouraging them to go to college, and my job’s up for grabs, too? I already have enough competition from the Chinese and the Indians! What possible benefit could this legislation have for a guy like me? (And you know they’re just going to spend 95 percent of their time in school chanting “Sí se puede” anyway.)

—“Nightmare Act” Is More Like It

Dear Gabacho:

I’d rather have college kids chant “Sí se puede” than joining a pointless fraternity or sorority or getting blotto at said pointless fraternity or sorority parties. All that said, though, you don’t have to worry about Dreamers taking your job—you’ll continue to have your middle-class lifestyle as these Dreamers catapult over you and become your boss, because they all possess the drive, ambition and talent that gabachos used to exhibit in college before it became finishing schools for high schoolers. Better learn how to grovel to el jefe in English and español, chulo!

I have noticed that Mexican women will put up with being called a ruca, heina, vieja, “my old lady,” and even sometimes go culinary like, “My little pupusa,” or chimichanga. But when you call her a “torta,” you are in one major fight. Why? What is so bad about tortas?

—Don One-liners

Dear Gabacho:

You’re calling her “fat,” because tortas are fat Mexican sandwiches made on French rolls. Want to culinarily woo her? Go old school and call her a “hot tamale,” or go postmodern, and deem her your memela—trust me.

Sometimes when I’m eating a burrito, the bottom end becomes saturated with moisture, and the tortilla breaks and stuff falls out. Is this the result of a lack of burrito-eating skill, an improperly-made burrito, or just the way it’s supposed to be?

—Chipotle Chingón

Dear Neighbor of Mexicans:

Don’t be a Mexican and accept the world the way it’s supposed to be, especially the art of burrito. Gabachos are so clueless that they think burritos are supposed to vomit out their contents like a coed in pre-narco Acapulco—¡que pendejos! A true burrito is an immaculate cylindrical god, wrapped up as tight as bacon around a hot dog, its structure so sound that you can throw it through the air like a spiral, and it won’t explode. This isn’t even a question of size, of beans and rice erupting out of the flour tortilla, because there’s simply nowhere else to go: The largest burritos on Earth are those made in the Mission District in San Francisco (where Chipotle’s founder found his “inspiration” for the chain’s burritos), where the Mission burrito is a way of life, larger than bricks, wrapped tight in foil, and never exploding (and a shout-out to my favorite taquería—that’s what burrito emporiums are called in San Francisco—in the Mission, El Castillito!). If a burrito gets so soggy at the bottom that it disintegrates, then the maker either put too much salsa, guacamole or sour cream in it, or the meat’s so damn greasy it’s not worth eating. If your burrito disintegrates, demand a refund—or, better yet, sue the business owner for defaming the burrito’s good nombre.