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Pocho Ocho Important Facts for Mexicans about El Ocho de Mayo

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ochodemayoOur Mexican friends have many misconceptions about today’s American celebration of El Ocho de Mayo. It is NOT the day the British burned the White House, for example, and it is NOT the day Gerry Rivers became Geraldo Rivera.

Help a hermano out with the Pocho Ocho Top Facts Mexicans Should Know about El Ocho de Mayo:

8. Best (Hellman’s in the East) Mayonnaise — El Jefe de Mayo — first introduced on this day in 1915.

7. Mayo West did not invent the life vest but she did flash her chichis to the sailors of the aircraft carrier USS Hooter on this day in 1942.

6. The Mayo Clinic — originally established to seek cures for La Cruda — opened its doors on this day in 1955.

Mas…Pocho Ocho Important Facts for Mexicans about El Ocho de Mayo

Area man doesn’t care what Cinco de Mayo is all about, yo!

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shirtmodel(PNS reporting from EAST LOS) Ruben Covarrubias astounded family and friends here Sunday night when he admitted that the history of Cinco de Mayo didn’t concern him and he’d always thought “May 5 was Mexican Independence Day, so like so what?!”

“I don’t care what it’s about, yo!” he told everyone within earshot of the backyard grill. “I just always celebrated it with MEChA and at school. Partay!”

Friends and family at the Covarrubias’ weekly carne asada were aghast. Some reconsidered whether they’d be driving back to El Sereno next week, multiple witness reported.

Mas…Area man doesn’t care what Cinco de Mayo is all about, yo!

Me? I’m drinking a cerveza and contemplating Cinco de Mayo

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I approach el Cinco de Mayo with excitement and ambivalence.

I learned the history of the Battle of Puebla as the son of proud Mexicans, who happened to be immigrants. The story goes: On the fifth of May 1862, a small Mexican army kicks French butt. Bueno.

My dad and grandmother worked at the Cinco de Mayo restaurant on Pacific Coast Highway in a small L.A. harbor town. My association with the day is food, drink, familia, history, cultura.

Mas…Me? I’m drinking a cerveza and contemplating Cinco de Mayo

Puebla, MX narco cartel killers crush French gang invaders

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Federales clean up bodies after cartel Battle of Puebla

(PNS reporting from PUEBLA, MX) Federales have finished cleaning up the streets of this southeastern city after a three-day battle between area gangsters and a French gang left 83 locals and 462 gabachos dead, PNS has learned.

The  Marseilles gang (“La Eme”) — sent to collect a drug debt allegedly owed by the Puebla-based Ignacio Zaragosa clika (the “Zetas”) — was overwhelmed by the fierce Mexican gangbangers.

Faulty HUMINT (human intelligence) was also a factor.

Based on bogus tips from informants who called themselves “los mentirosos,” which La Eme interpreted as “mentors,” the frogs engaged the enemy at noon. La Eme expected the Zeta sentries to be taking siestas with their sombreros pulled so low they couldn’t see the advancing gunmen. And the close-by burros? The French plan relied on the overhwhelming odor of naturally estanky donkeys to mask the telltale scent of French breath-de-fromage.

But the Zetas were not asleep and those weren’t your mother’s burritos.

Mas…Puebla, MX narco cartel killers crush French gang invaders

The San Patricio Batallón: The Irish heroes of Aztlan (music videos)

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This corrido by Orange County Celtic-rock homies The Fenians tells the tragic story of the San Patricios, the St. Patrick’s Battalion.

The unit of 200 mostly Catholic Irish immigrants deserted the United States Army and fought with the Mexican Army against the U.S.A. in the Mexican–American War.

Scots-British post-punk The Wakes Band offer their version of the story next. The video’s not much to look at but the lyrics are killer, so read along below:

Mas…The San Patricio Batallón: The Irish heroes of Aztlan (music videos)

Spanglish is no Juan E. Come Lately to California (audio)

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ranchosWhen Los Angeles was a still a little pueblo in the northern part of Mexico known as Alta California, Spanglish was born.

Public Radio International’s Global Nation explains:

…living in the a rancho just north of the pueblo was a young Scottish adventurer named Hugh Reid. In the 1830s he left the old world for the new — Mexico. And in his adopted home he was rechristened with an additional Spanish name, Perfecto Hugo Reid. Reid would eventually settle down on a ranch in southern California near the San Gabriel mission in what’s now Arcadia, a suburb of Los Angeles, where he married a local woman, Doña Victoria.

Robert Train has been obsessed with Hugo Reid’s backstory for the last few years. Train is a professor of Spanish at Sonoma State University. We met recently at the Huntington Library archives in Pasadena, to read Reid’s extremely yellowed letters.

Mas…Spanglish is no Juan E. Come Lately to California (audio)

What are America’s Pocho Ocho Top Brownest Jobs?

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whitejobsfThe Atlantic analyzed the stats and guess what!? Some professions in the United Estates are positively teeming with white people — jobs like veterinarian, espeech sangwich pathologist and meelrye (chart excerpt, above).

Hurm, we said, perhaps we can fabricate a similar list of America’s brownest jobs.

“So let it be written, so let it be done!” said Pharoah, another white dude. And we did. Here’s our list of America’s Pocho Ocho Top Brownest Jobs:

8. Piñata Fluffer

7. Chief Cleavage Officer for Spanish Language TV Network News Division

6. Tia Guadalupe Gutierrez Santa Maria de Los Angeles y Zacatecas

Mas…What are America’s Pocho Ocho Top Brownest Jobs?

America pauses for Ricky Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2015

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(PNS reporting from WASHINGTON, D.C.) America will pause Monday to remember the life and message of Ricky Martin Luther King Jr., whose Tengo a Dream y Dance! speech changed the nation forever.

Post offices and other public facilities will be closed, banks and stock exchanges are taking the day off and salsa picante and sweet potato pie – his favorite snack combo – will go on sale all across America. Monday’s holiday honors RMLK’s 39th birthday.

Despite his tragic death in 2007 (he was shot and killed by the president of his fan club before an appearance in Dallas) King’s promotion of “love, equality, justice, innocence, malice, refuge, oppression, freedom” has continued to resonate for confused African-Americans, Latinos, Afro-Latinos, Chicanx and Anglx alike.

Mas…America pauses for Ricky Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2015

Pocho Ocho little-known factoids about the first Thanksgiving

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See this painting that is supposed to depict the first Thanksgiving? It’s wrong wrong wrong. What really went on at that epic feast so long ago? We’ve got eight little-known factoids right here:

8. The frozen string beans in the casserole were past their sell-by date

7. Pilgrim Zephaniah Winslow = silent but deadly

6. Squanto’s succotash was really delivery from Uber Eats

Mas…Pocho Ocho little-known factoids about the first Thanksgiving

Ask A Mexican: Why do Salvadorans and Mexicans hate so much? (video)

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gussalvadorGustavo ¡Ask A Mexican! Arellano steps back into the video limelight to ponder the question: Why do Mexicans (and Mexican-Americans) and Salvadorans (and Salvadoran-Americans) hate each other so much? Is it because Salvadoran horchata is better than Mexican horchata? And the fact that pupusas kick gorditas’ culinary nalgas? Or are they just following an age-old American tradition of hatin’ on the newbies that goes back at least to Benjamin Franklin?

Mas…Ask A Mexican: Why do Salvadorans and Mexicans hate so much? (video)

Talk (And Sing) Like A (Mexican) Pirate Day: ‘Santy Anno’ (music video)

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It’s International Talk Sing Like A Pirate Day and we’re please to present not only a “sea shanty” about being a pirate, but one about the Mexican-American war of the 1850s. It’s even in Wikipedia! This video of Santy Anno has music by Forebitter and Lord Cavendish manga-influenced artwork assembled by uploader LordDrakoArakis, probably not his real name.

Here’s the some of what Wikipedia says about this traditional song:

Mas…Talk (And Sing) Like A (Mexican) Pirate Day: ‘Santy Anno’ (music video)

Massive ancient Mayan cities found deep in Mexican jungle

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junglecityArcheologists have re-discovered two ancient Mayan cities deep in the Yucatan jungle — massive cities with plazas, buildings and pyramids, some over six stories high.

One spectacular find was a monster mouth portal carved with a stylized earth monster eye and fangs along the doorway jamb (photo.)

The cities, Lagunita and Tamchen, flourished in what is called the Late and Terminal Classic periods (600-1000 A.D.).

Discovery News has the story:

Mas…Massive ancient Mayan cities found deep in Mexican jungle

The Gay 90s: Hot tamales on Broadway, New York City, 1894 (toon)

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tamales1864This cartoon, from 1894, is by Archie Dunn. The tamalero seems to be wearing a chef’s hat (?) and using a charcoal burner to keep the tamales hot. What do you think his medallion signifies? And aren’t the “Gay Nineties” couple elegant? Are they daredevils eating exotic street food or just another drunk couple with the munchies, hanging out at the food truck of the era?

Image courtesy the New York Public Library.

PREVIOUSLY ON TAMALES:

Mas…The Gay 90s: Hot tamales on Broadway, New York City, 1894 (toon)

POCHO History 101: The invasion – how America ‘grew’ (video)

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Via EHistory.org:

Between 1776 and 1887, the United States seized over 1.5 billion acres from America’s indigenous people by treaty and executive order. The Invasion of America shows how by mapping every treaty and executive order during that period. It concludes with a map of present-day Federal Indian reservations.

PREVIOUSLY ON NATIVE AMERICANS:

Mas…POCHO History 101: The invasion – how America ‘grew’ (video)

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