One man's take on his culture's stereotypes

Dear Readers: Before we move on to your spicy preguntas, a bit of housecleaning. Primeramente, gracias to all the Know Nothings who responded to my 100-word-essay challenge asking them to justify loving legal Mexicans but not the illegal ones; I will publish the best entries on the Mexican’s April Fools’ edición. On a more important note: pinche. Many of ustedes offered alternate meanings to this Mexican Spanish vulgarity beyond “cooking assistant.” --From our Puerto Rican brothers:

In Puerto Rico, pinche is simply the term used for a wooden clothespin. There is no negative connotation of the word.

Next is my pal Tigrillo, a proud Mexi grad of Princeton University, voicing something echoed by many other tejanos:

In south Texas, they use pinche to refer to people being tight with their money. Kind of weird, since so many folk in south Texas have roots in Monterrey, the land of the codos. I think that meaning of pinche is Tex-Mex.--The final word goes to a gabacho living in Mexico:

Here in Sinaloa, pinche is a pretty mild word, more like your (and mine for years) definition, “worthless.” Commonly used by la gente educada y religiosa, pinche just doesn’t have that [obscene] connotation “that it seems to have gained from you pinche wabs y Chicanos in the borderlands and in the U.S.”

One qualifier to the Mexicanized gabacho: he lives in Sinaloa, a Pacific coastal state notorious for its tough, vulgar residents. Need proof? This is where most of Mexico’s drugs lords originate.

Have you seen the Simpsons figurines from Kid Robot? The Bumblebee Man is the hardest to get, therefore the most valuable of the bunch. I’ve seen it on eBay going for $75 when they cost seven bucks in the store. You think Matt Groening did this on purpose ’cause he really does love the Mexicans, or was is just a funny character and coincidence? --Señora Ding Dong

Dear Wabette: Groening loves Mexicans, and not just because he freely admits that the legendary Mexican superhero El Chapulín Colorado (The Red Grasshopper) inspired Bumblebee Man. The Simpsons is the most-Latino show ever to appear on English-language television, one so wabby it makes The George Lopez Show seem as gabacho as Friends.