With the images and sounds of chaos out of Los Angeles this week, I thought it a good time to write about Mexicans, a subject I know something about, though some might claim my “Coconut-hood” disqualifies me from boasting any expertise in the matter.
They have a point. I am, indeed, a raging coconut, brown and rough on the outside, white and milky on the inside. A brown hombre who behaves and thinks like a white man. Perhaps I am a poor spokesman on matters pertaining to all things Mexican. I’ve never been one to affiliate myself with the Mexican temperament or cultural causes. Growing up, I found myself gravitating to all racial and ethnic social circles, insofar as they were represented in my neighborhood. I was color blind in every sense of the word and that has never changed.
I’ve never allowed myself to become a stereotype. I don’t speak with an accent and I’m politically very right-wing. I don’t write about my ethnicity a whole lot because it is not an important component of my identity.
This sporadic series will be my take on Mexicans from an insider’s point of view, their American permutation which is decidedly unlike our ancestral Mexican origins. I will talk about how Mexican culture pertains to me, how it influences my life, and how it doesn’t.
For Part 1, I am reposting a short piece I wrote in 2013 called, “I’m not a self-hater, but there are too many damned Mexicans in California.” It appeared on my old blog called “Social Extinction.” At the time of its writing, I lived in East Los Angeles, a city which is to Mexicans what Vermont is to WASPs. I worked in Hollywood and my commute and daily life brought me in contact with Mexicans, every second of the day.
So I wrote this.
From February 21, 2013
Interesting California demographic forecast in the NY Times today.
This graphic illustrates California's impending "Hispanicification" in ten-year intervals, beginning in 1980 and continuing though 2020, when a demographic forecast predicts Hispanics will be the ethnic majority in this state. In the year 2020 we will be able to establish an Aztlan government, or whatever other stupidity young Mexican toy-revolutionaries get riled up about on school campuses where they prime themselves to enter the White world of red, white and blue they pretend to hate.
I'll tell you what. It already feels a lot like 2020 in most of L.A. County.
Often, I will walk out of the house and experience this reaction.
We are taking over this state.
Who am I kidding? We have taken it over. We run California. All our corrupt leaders and log-jammed promises of ethnic excellence just settle like dark brown silt over the Golden State's tattered welcome mat. We are everywhere, in your face and destroying your idyllic paradise.
I don't like it.
Surprisingly, or perhaps not, L.A. county's Mexiratio is less than 50%, but numerically we are oozing out the palm trees and ice cream trucks around here. I feel like such a tired commodity in this town. I'm a dime 'o' dozen in Los Angeles.
I want to be different, I want to be unique and stand out. I’ve never liked being part of the predictable litter.
I want to move to Humboldt County. In the late 70s, my parents drove us to Washington State and we stopped in Eureka to admire the gray and rocky Northern California coast, and an old guy in a pick-up looked us over and asked if we were from "down South." Perhaps his inference was way, way down South. How could he tell? I don’t like to blend in. I don't like to be around too many of my type. Not because I don't like them, but because they remind me too much of myself.
Around here, I walk down the street. Mexicans.
Ride the bus. Mexicans.
Get something from McDonald's. Mexicans.
Go shopping. Mexicans.
Wash the car. Guess!
Mexicans come in all flavors, all colors, but in East L.A., it's a given that everyone you encounter is some permutation of Mexican, and can in fact be spoken to in Spanish regardless of how they look. I get opened in Spanish a lot but I look Mexican, so it's not shocking, but I've known Asians who get spoken to in Spanish around here. It's comical and a revealing insight into the racial spectrum of the Mexican people.
Still, the standard issue East L.A. Mexican is usually dark, short, mustachioed, and has a slight paunch. A baseball cap and white boots are optional but highly encouraged.
I feel way too indistinguishable here.
When I attended Cal Poly, Pomona, in the early 80s, I felt like one of 3.5 Mexicans on the campus. I was young and intimidated, but I would eat that rarefied presence up now. Even in my daily, non-East L.A. existence, I'm around non-Mexicans very often, and it's sort of cool but can also be just as irritating because White people wear thin too. White people, especially the "Industry" types, are just as monolithic and aggravating as the East L.A. Mexicans.
And don't get me started on the Hollywood Jews.
Postscript, June 14, 2025.
The forecast model appears to have been accurate. My memories of Cal Poly, Pomona, are from a time when Hispanics barely made of 20% of the state’s population.
