''¡Ask a Mexican!'' was a syndicated satirical weekly newspaper column written by Gustavo Arellano in the Orange County, California

alternative weekly An alternative newspaper is a type of newspaper that eschews comprehensive coverage of general news in favor of stylized reporting, opinionated reviews and columns, investigations into edgy topics and magazine-style feature stories highlighting l ...

OC Weekly ''OC Weekly'' was a free alternative weekly paper distributed in Orange County and Long Beach, California. OC Weekly was founded in September 1995 by Will Swaim, who acted as editor and publisher until 2007. The paper was distributed at coffee ...

''. Publication of ''¡Ask a Mexican!'' began in 2004 as a one-time spoof, but popularity has made it one of the weekly's most popular columns.

History

Every week, readers submit their questions about Mexican-American people and culture, including their customs, labor issues, and

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. Arellano usually responds to two queries a week in a politically incorrect manner often starting with the words "Dear '' Gabacho''." The column appears in about a dozen newspapers across the country. Arellano has won numerous awards for the column, including the 2006 and 2008 Best Non-Political Column in a large-circulation weekly from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, the 2007 Presidents Award from the Los Angeles Press Club and an Impacto Award from the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and a 2008 Latino Spirit award from the California Latino Legislative Caucus. The columns were collected in book form in 2008 as ''¡Ask a Mexican!'' (Scribners, ). On October 13, 2017, Arellano resigned his position with ''OC Weekly'' after refusing its owner's directive to fire half his staff. He told Tom Leykis that the paper owns the " copyright" (actually trademark) on the name ''¡Ask a Mexican!'', but that he intended to continue writing for other venues.

References

External links

OC Weekly
*Mireya Navarro.

. ''The New York Times,'' 23 June 2007.
Interview with Arellano on ''Ask a Mexican'', February 10, 2016

C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ask A Mexican! Satirical columns Mexican-American culture in California Orange County, California 2004 introductions