Tu shall be assimilated

Dear Mexican:

Why is it that ever since the United States/California let you people immigrate, tunnel, weasel or whatever into this country, nothing good has happened and/or come from it? California’s welfare program is burdened with lowlife Hispanics. The prison system is 70 percent Hispanic, 45 percent gang-based. Real-estate values have dropped sharply, violence due to gangs is rampant and, to top it off, all you motherfuckers are somehow related. What—do you have Hispanic incest festivals? I mean, Jesus Christ, I’d like to go to one restaurant in Southern California and not see a shitload of beaners. Why the fuck can’t you stay in that shit box of a country and leave the United States alone?

—Fountain Valley Fucktard

Dear Gabacho:

Because it’s a shit box, silly! Many wonderful things have happened in California and the United States since the Reconquista officially began in 1965, when the Immigration and Nationality Act made it easier for non-Europeans to invade our shores. The filling of lower-rung jobs by Mexican immigrants forced American citizens to find better jobs, spurring the digital revolution. Revenues have exploded across the United States in those 45 years—how do you think those welfare-taking Mexicans get their government queso? From plucking checks off of branches? And whither late-night talk-show hosts and their Mexican sidekicks? Spare me your causality arguments and get your stats correcto: Latinos make up 38 percent of California’s prison population, and 40 percent of the federal level. Finally, want to visit restaurants with no Mexicans? Try Arby’s.

Why do Mexicans make up stupid names? I’m not talking about indigenous names that sound different, but when you say them, they have a standard pronunciation. I’m concerned about names that are entirely made up, like with extra syllables that aren’t linguistically logical. I’m also concerned about parents who name their children foreign names that they don’t know how to spell. I’ve met tons of little Mexican boys named Giovanni, but their moms or dads spell it Giobani, Geovany, Jobany. These spellings aren’t even phonetic in any particular language. This must be really embarrassing for them when they grow up. Also, I am sick of all the variations of Jazmin—Jasmin pronounced Yasmin, Yazmine, Yasmina, etc. Most of the time the J is pronounced like a Y when, in reality, the flower name Jazmin pronounced with the J from jalapeño is really beautiful. Was Disney’s Aladdin really popular among Mexicans or something? I’m also sick of all the Mexican kids named “Bray-yan,” because Brian is a stupid name, even in English. What happened to naming kids after saints? Did that go out of fashion with the rise of so many Mexican-targeted evangelical movements? I’m just worried that the children of this generation will suffer because no one will take them seriously.

—Linguistically Loco

Dear Wab:

People bastardizing names is a hallmark of the human experience: The Hebrew Yochanan is the root for John, Jean, Juan, João, Ivan, Johan, Jan, Evan, Giovanni, Hans, Sean, and many, many other variants. And Mexicans stateside don’t use saints’ names in Spanish because—as I repeat in this column ad nauseum—they assimilate. As the Mexican’s old UC Los Angeles professor Edward Telles and his department of sociology colleague Vilma Ortiz showed in their 2008 book, Generations of Exclusion: Mexican Americans Assimilation and Race, the longer Mexicans live in this country, the more likely they’ll bestow non-Spanish names on their children. No joke from me on this point—just basking at the satisfaction of stats proving the Know Nothing nation wrong again. Give up, already, pendejos!