Pocho Ocho reasons Jan Brewer declined dinner at the White House

We already know mummy-like AZ Gov. Jan Brewer gets absolutely unraveled whenever she’s near Pres. Barack Obama. But why exactly did she decline to attend tomorrow’s Governor’s Dinner at the White House?

Here are the Pocho Ocho reasons Brewer did not accept the President’s invitation:

8– They could not guarantee her a seat next to the open bar

7– She’s going to be busy looking for heads in the desert

6– Sunday night is when she soaks her skin in formaldehyde

Mas…Pocho Ocho reasons Jan Brewer declined dinner at the White House

Ñewsweek: Lalo the valet, the gay GOP sheriff, fishsticks and boobs

There’s a fine line between truth and satire, a twisty maze of passageways, all alike. POCHO was doing that line dance all week with these stories:

Standing While Brown: A white lady tried to get me to valet her car

I was not dressed like this

Representing Pocho.com, I was a panelist along with a table full of young, savvy Latino digital media types as part of last night’s Digital LA Latino Content event.

Afterwards, I finished up networking and headed outside to leave. As I waited to get my car in front of the host restaurant in Beverly Hills, you’ll never guess what happened: A white lady tried to give me her car valet ticket. Twice.

You’ve heard this story a thousand times before; it’s a Latino cliché. Or is it a tradition?

Anglo person assumes brown person is a worker, there to serve them.

An old Chicano chestnut goes something like this:

I’m a Mexican-American, am married to a white woman, and I was mowing our lawn in front of our nice, big home. A white lady pulled up in a car and asked, “How much do you charge to mow a lawn?” My answer: Nothing. The lady of the house lets me sleep with her.

Mas…Standing While Brown: A white lady tried to get me to valet her car

Obama aide’s ‘Chimichanga’ Tweet – racist or not?

Giant esteak chimichanga

In what’s been termed “the tweet heard ’round the world,” Pres. Barack Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina tweeted today that a line from a Washington Post editorial— “The chimichanga? It may be the only thing Republicans have left to offer Latinos” — was the “line of the day.”

Consequently, and in short order, Republicans began attacking Messina (not Latino) and lefties in general for being racist, insensitive, not offering Latinos much in the way of policies anyway, and much more. Repercussions of the tweet, however, reach much further than the Twitterverse.

Mas…Obama aide’s ‘Chimichanga’ Tweet – racist or not?

Sabado Pochonte Video: Puro Party – Celebrating A Genocide

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll yell at this video. Just don’t shoot the screen, like Elvis. Puro Party — Celebrating A Genocide: Every year, San Antonio, TX, stages Fiesta, a 10-day celebration to honor Texas’ defeat of Mexico in the battle of San Jacinto — the Alamo, remember? This 1992 video takes Fiesta as a metaphor for the colonization of this predominantly Chicano city as an opportunity to explore Aztlan/Chicano identities. This public-domain video has been uploaded to YouTube by POCHO to make it viewable for the first time on iOS devices like iPads and iPhones.

Ñewsy Week: Daniel D Portado returns, AL ♥ CA y much more

A busy ñewsweek brought the return to glory of the original self-deportationist, Daniel D. Portado, who, it turns out, is a fictional character created by POCHO Jefe-in-Chief Lalo Alcaraz; an Alabama plan to import Canadians to replace the immigrant labor that used to keep the state running; and militant MEChA murmurings about the Lack of Visible Latinos in the hit BBC/PBS series Downton Abbey.

Other top stories included First Lady Michelle Obama’s partnership with Caribbean food conglomerate Goya and the astounding “installation art” of Ramiro Gomez, Jr.  Here’s our big list:

Mas…Ñewsy Week: Daniel D Portado returns, AL ♥ CA y much more

FLOTUS on healthy food for Chicano kids: Eat like Puerto Ricans

First Lady at Goya photo-op (screen capture abcactionnews.com)

(PNS reporting from LA FLORIDA) Joining First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative, Goya Foods, the largest Hispanic-owned U.S. food company, will help promote MiPlato, the USDA program designed to encourage children to make healthier eating choices.

“Today’s announcement is about eliminating diabetes in the Mexican-American community by helping them make better choices, and, with the help of Goya, forcing them to eat like Cubans and Puerto Ricans,” Obama said Friday.

“Everything that Goya is doing,” she said, “centers around a simple idea: this country’s Mexican children need to be told what to eat by a corporate conglomerate that mass-produces Caribbean food.”

Obama joined Goya president Bob Unanue and leading Latino organizations at a Tampa supermarket to promote healthy eating nationwide with a special focus on the incorrectly-nourished Mexican-American community.

Mas…FLOTUS on healthy food for Chicano kids: Eat like Puerto Ricans

The astounding ‘installation art’ of Ramiro Gomez, Jr.

Artist Ramiro Gomez, Jr. makes the invisible visible as he inserts paper images of hardworking Latinos into the landscape of Los Angeles — a gardener with a leaf blower, a housekeeper with a mop. There are many more images on his Happy Hills blog where he describes himself this way:

I live and work as a male nanny in West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and the Laurel Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills. Happy Hills is my body of work documenting the predominantly hispanic workforce, who work tirelessly behind the scenes to present the beautiful images of the ideal Hollywood Hills homes.

Mas…The astounding ‘installation art’ of Ramiro Gomez, Jr.

Alabama legislators to ‘import’ Canadian workers to fill jobs

Recent aerial photo shows rotting crops
(PNS reporting from DIXIE) In a move to avoid further financial ruin and humiliation, Alabama legislators are considering an unusual measure called the “Canuck Program” that would “import” laborers from Canadia to fill empty Alabama jobs.

Immigrant Mexican labor has all but disappeared from the Alabama landscape and the state has lost $10.8 billion in rotting crops and revenue.

Lawmakers desperate for solutions hope the Canuck Program will resuscitate the Yellowhammer State’s ignorant and bigoted economy.

Mas…Alabama legislators to ‘import’ Canadian workers to fill jobs

Sabado Pochonte: DTLA, Olvera St., 1937 (Vericolor, Cliché-o-Vision)


A Street of Memory (1937): You’ll meet “soft-speaking olive-skinned guides, languid in business” the narrator intones as he guides tourists in a walk through Los Angeles’ quasi-historic Olvera Street.
Brain-exploding old school stereotypes spice up this documentary by William M. Pizor – a “Vericolor production offering touristic views of  Olvera Street and the old Mexican quarter in Los Angeles, California” according to the Internet Archive.

Do you see anyone you know? Recognize any landmarks?

Meet ‘Pocho’ the novel, its author, and their times

The interview is three decades old but still amazing. Listen to the man that started “pochismo!”

As the University of Texas presents the Mexican American Experience writes:

Jose Antonio Villarreal discusses his 1959 novel, Pocho, and the ways in which his own life and politics influenced his writing. Villarreal first discusses his experiences growing up in the pre-World War II era in California. He traces some of the similarities between his own life and that of his character, Richard Rubio, but he stresses that his novel is not a biography. Villarreal says he wrote Pocho because he wanted to introduce the rest of the U.S. to a group of Americans they knew nothing about.

Click to listen

Tucson schools ban the A-B-C’s – are the 1-2-3’s next?

Undercover lapel-cam photo: Is this John Huppenthal (arrow) waving to supporters at book burning rally?

(PNS reporting from TUCSON) Even as John Huppenthal takes a breather now that teaching the alphabet is banned in Tucson schools, his Taliban-style campaign of education purification continues in the hands of allies.

“We won’t stop with just readin’ and writin’,” they say, “so ‘rithmetic is next!”

Superintendent of Public Instruction Huppenthal told PNS why he is terrified by brown-skinned children who read books and ask preguntas:

Mas…Tucson schools ban the A-B-C’s – are the 1-2-3’s next?

Am I a racist because I want to date Latino guys?

During my seemingly eternal quest for love, I’ve been accused  more than once of being “racist” for mostly dating Latinos.

Part of this is totally my fault and the result of my whining and chiflazón. There’s  a misunderstanding about what motivates me and other people like me, who are interested primarily in dating other Latinos.

First and foremost, let me say that I have dated mostly pochos like me, but I’ve also dated Cubans, white men, and Asian men, finally coming to the conclusion that all men on this planet are idiots when they are in their 20s. Some of my complaints, which other Latinas share,  include:  They want to get married too soon, or they’re divorced with kids young, they’re too short, as you become more educated there are less Latinos around you, they’re scared of educated/professional women. The list goes on.

Mas…Am I a racist because I want to date Latino guys?

Arizona racist white ladies threaten Mexicans: THE MOVIE

Not all people from Arizona are stupid racist dumbasses, but the two young women starring in the now-infamous year-old Racist Arizona White Ladies video sure are. It was reposted recently on YouTube and viewed over 1.2 million times. Throughout this poorly-lit hate flick two young female Arizonans cheer on the anti-immigrant law SB1070, which has since been partially gutted by courts, and engage in racist name-calling and vile stereotyping, and issue horrid violent threats to their brown-skinned neighbors.

Mas…Arizona racist white ladies threaten Mexicans: THE MOVIE

The Week in Ñews: Iowa analysis, death by chihuahua, looking ‘Mexican’

By Julio Salgado

Hatred of the poor edged out racism and homophobia in the Iowa GOP caucuses, a Fresno man was mauled by chihuahuas and died of shame, and the attempt to repeal the California Dream Act failed when the referendum’s backer (photo, right) couldn’t score enough racist jerkwad signatures to get their scheme placed on the ballot.

For these Pochostan stories and more, click here:

Mas…The Week in Ñews: Iowa analysis, death by chihuahua, looking ‘Mexican’

The importance of ethnic studies and thanks, Sandra Cisneros

Save Ethnic Studies by Julio Salgado

I honestly don’t remember the first book I ever read. It probably wasn’t that good if I can’t remember it right? But I do remember the first time I read a Sandra Cisneros book. I was in the tenth grade and I picked up House On Mango Street because of one thing: Sandra’s last name.

It just clicked with me.

It wasn’t until I read Cisnero’s Caramelo in college that I realized the importance of knowing about someone like her when I was still young.

Mas…The importance of ethnic studies and thanks, Sandra Cisneros

CA Dream Act repeal fails to gather enough hateful signatures

Racist asshole signature failure

(SACRAMENTO) Republican Assemblyman Tim Donnelly announced today that his effort to repeal the California Dream Act, which allows undocumented students to apply for in-state tuition and scholarships in the state’s universities, has failed to collect enough signatures from racist assholes to get on the ballot.

Mas…CA Dream Act repeal fails to gather enough hateful signatures

Who, exactly, IS a pocho?

Pocho used to be defined by what it wasn’t. But that was a long time ago.

Pocho, by my reckoning, used to be one thing but now it’s another. To be a pocho used to mean that you weren’t a legitimate Latino – and I use the word Latino in a very broad sense (I understand the whole Latinos-don’t-speak-Latin thing, but I use the term for a more utilitarian reason: it suits my purpose).

Mas…Who, exactly, IS a pocho?

Al Madrigal: ‘The day I hired a day laborer’ (NSFW)


Al Madrigal live at the Laugh Factory: When at Home Depot (note to self – go early in the morning) it’s important to choose wisely when picking your day laborer. Not Safe For Work. Tomorrow’s video: Pocho-in-Chief Lalo Alcaraz interviews Al at POCHO headquarters about Al’s new full-time gig as the Daily Show’s Senior Latino Correspondent.