Denver Mariachis are one Passionate Bunch

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If you have never been a member of a Mariachi band in Denver, Colorado, chances are you will find it difficult to feel sorry for Mr. Alvaro Alvarado-Amarias, who has been held by the local authorities for holding a gun on a fellow musician. The reason?:

“Alvarado-Amarias, 31, was arrested on charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment, menacing and assault for holding Ervey Ruiz, 52, at gunpoint for five hours, threatening to kill him because Ruiz told him he was joining another band,” according to the Rocky Mountain News.

Luckily, Mr. Ervey Ruiz was not harmed, although we’re still waiting to see if the incident actually made him change his mind about switching bands. In the meantime, he might want to check out Mariachi Vasquez, which has been performing in the Denver area for over 15 years now… You never know!

Oh No! I am a Taco Salad Type of Chick

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And speaking of non-Mexican Mexican food, restaurant chain Qdoba has partnered with Dr. Alan Hirsch, director of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation (ha, ha, ha), to conduct a study aptly titled: “You Are What You Eat,” which concluded that preferences for Mexican foods such as tacos, burritos and quesadillas can indicate very specific and unique personality traits.

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“With Mexican food preferences, we were able to find a correlation between which food people most enjoyed and what that meant about their underlying personality,” said Dr. Hirsch.

Gosh, am I a quesadilla-type of person? (someone who is dependable and a true friend; content being one of the crowd.) Or maybe I’m more like the chips & salsa type: aggressive, successful, achievement-orientated, and natural leaders. Am I leaning towards being a burrito?

So I went ahead and took the Qdoba Identity Test. Sadly, I have to report I am nothing but a Taco Salad-type of chick: “well-adjusted, empathic, understanding, and a perfect spouse, parent, and friend.”(Oh well, at least I am not a Nacho-type: “shy, quiet, reserved and introverted.”)

So what are you waiting for, you potential burritos? Go ahead and try the test yourselves. Heck! what else is there to over the weekend anyway?

The Brits, Too, Think This is Mexican Food

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Ok, my friends. Turns out the U.S. is not the only country with a twisted view of Mexican food. In fact, General Mills’ Old El Paso Fajita Dinner Kit (yes, a kit!) is the biggest selling “ethnic” product in the U.K., worth upwards of £12.5 million each year.

“It’s no accident that Old El Paso is the clear No 1 in the Mexican food category in the UK. Innovation is vital, even within a thriving category, to safeguard its ongoing and long-term success,” Andy Foweather, Sales Director for General Mills UK, told Thinkretail.

Wondering what’s in the kit? Here it goes: (I’m reading directly from the box. No joke.)

10 flour tortillas: Water, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil with mono-and diglycerides, glycerin, corn syrup solids, baking powder (baking soda, corn starch, sodium aluminum sulfate, calcium sulfate, monocalcium phosphate), salt, potassium sorbate and calcium propionate (preservatives), monoglycerides, fumaric acid, L-Cysteine hydrochloride.

Fajita seasoning mix: corn starch, maltodextrin, hydrolyzed corn and soy protein, sugar, salt, spice chili pepper, onion powder, citric acid, artificial color, silicon dioxide (anticaking agent) natural smoke flavor (?) sulfiting agents and ethoxyquin.

Mmmmmm… sodium aluminum sulfate seasoned with silicon dioxide and a natural smoke flavor? That will surely make you scream ¡Ajúa!

Mexico Wants to Know Why Mexicans Leave (Duh!)

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Here’s a good one. The Mexican government is asking Mexican nationals living abroad to send in their migratory tales to participate in a worldwide writing contest aimed at getting a “better sense of how their former citizens live abroad, what drove them to leave Mexico, what challenges they face and what they need to integrate and succeed, particularly in the United States.”

(Well, wouldn’t the Mexican government just have to look at its own policies to figure out what drove people out? duh!)

In any case, the lucky winner will receive a prize of approximately $2,000 in cash and a free trip to Mexico to accept the award. Yupi!

But wait a second: how are they going to send them back to the U.S.? will they be needing extra polleros? (just asking).

U.S. Dental Tourism is Boon to Mexican Border Towns

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mr-tooth.jpgTrivia: would you risk your life wondering about a city ran by heavily armed drug lords to save $400 on dental work?
Sure! say an increasing number of Americans who, faced with a prohibitively dental care in their home country, are flocking to Mexican border cities to receive dental treatment.
“A dental crown in the U.S. costs upward of $600 per tooth, compared to $190 or less in Mexico, so U.S. tourists are shrugging off concerns about brutal drugs wars being waged in Mexico’s border cities in a bid to access some cheap dental treatment,” according to British Web site Dentistry.
My favorite part, though, is the fact that this gringo dental boom is bringing some unexpected new business in the area.
Rio Dental, a clinic based in Ciudad Juárez, even boasts on its –all English-language– Web site: “We can even pick you up from the airport in El Paso… We are conveniently located just minutes across the border from El Paso, Texas, in Juarez, Mexico. A dentist with affordable prices is closer than you think.”

Latinos Display Beautiful Bodies to be on ‘People’

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Ever wondered what it takes to become instantly popular? Check out People en Español‘s latest marketing stunt: an online, user-generated content page on Yahoo Telemundo, calling on young Hispanics to become the 51st most-beautiful person in America.

A few days before entries closed Feb. 3, more than 5,000 photos had been posted, sparking more than 34,000 comments, often extremely personal and ranging from snarky to gushing, wrote Laurel Wentz in Advertising Age.

Among hundreds of entries is that of Fernando Gonzalez, a “provocatively posed shirtless man” who has garnered over 4,400 comments. According to Mr. Gonzalez, he should be chosen as one of People en Español‘s most beautiful people because he has a very big… heart. Yeah. Right.

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Others, like Maribel Nuñez, resort to a sexy, casual pose, which includes holding a cucumber and resting it over her right shoulder. (????!!)

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I’m still not sure if Mr. Gonzalez or Ms. Nuñez will make the cut (the winner will be chosen Feb. 28) but they surely have given me some clothing / posing ideas to consider, and hopefully get at least two or three comments from my loyal lazy writers readers.

Dallas Attorney Didn’t Know Mexicans = Beaners

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Remember that ridiculous story about Beaner’s Coffee changing its name because it didn’t want to offend Hispanics? Well, now a poor Dallas lawyer is taking the heat for comparing the difficulty of counting the number of Hispanic voters in a city with guessing the number of “beans in a jar.”

“The two methods presented in this case to determine if there is a Hispanic voter majority in the plaintiffs’ district bring to mind the contest where customers are asked to guess the number of beans in a large jar,” attorney C. Robert Heath wrote in a legal brief on behalf of Farmers Ranch (that same place that doesn’t like Mexicans painting their homes in colors)

According to the Dallas Morning News, Mr. Heath has since apologized saying he wasn’t familiar with the slur. “It was just an analogy, and obviously it was ill chosen because it was offensive to some persons,” Mr. Heath said. “That was entirely unintentional, and I apologize for it.”

Shame on you Mr. Heath. If you really know Mexicans, you should know what we’re all about.

That’s it! I’m off to have a big plate of frijoles. Ajúa!

Why I Love Mexico (Part IV)

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Who needs sophisticated marketing tools and job classifieds when you can advertise a job in a very simple, straight-forward way?

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The picture above, taken somewhere in my beloved Mexico City, was sent to me by a reader of my blog, though I believe he is not the rightful owner of the image. So if you are, please step in, so I can take my (mariachi) hat off.

My Butt is Not Latina Enough

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Speaking about culturally relevant modifications to products and services, I remember a press release I received the other day from Fiorana, an apparel maker from Fort Worth, Texas, announcing the launch of its first women’s “Latina Cut” line of jeans.According to the company’s founder and president Mike Braden, “The Latina body is different in waist and hip structure.” The conclusion? “When wearing Anglo cut jeans, there is always a fit problem around the waist area.”

What a relief! And to think that for a while — a long while — I thought my inability to squeeze into my Levi’s or Gap jeans had something to do with a recent trip to Mexico City, where I indulged in sopes and quesadillas as if there was no tomorrow. As it turns out, and according to Mr. Braden, the only reason Latino women like myself are having trouble fitting in their regular jeans is the result of our naturally and genetically-programmed bootylicious look.

I wrote this post originally for Advertising Age’s Big Tent. To continue reading, please click here:

Dems Respond to Bush’s Address in Plain Spanish

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Millions of viewers who tuned in to the Univision network to watch last night’s State of the Union address were not only treated with the first-ever State of the Union televised live entirely in Spanish, but also saw a radically different Democratic response to Bush’s last address to the nation.

Unlike what millions of Americans saw immediately after Bush’s address to the nation (the English-language response by Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius) Univision viewers got their very own respuesta, in Spanish, delivered by Mexican-American Leticia Van de Putte (pictured above) the Texas State Senator with a mildly unfortunate name. Just to clarify: while Mr. Bush’s speech was simultaneously translated into Spanish, Van de Putte’s response –which is already up in YouTube— was delivered in her almost-perfect Spanish.

In her response, Van de Putte termed seven years of Bush administration economic policy as a disaster (or shall I say desastre) for many Hispanics. “Latinos find themselves working more and more in our country today and taking home fewer wages,” she said.

Kudos to Univision for putting that together. And for those of you who don’t know, Van de Putte is the politician behind the 45-day walkout to New Mexico in 2003 and one of the few women lawmakers who last year supported a controversial plan to vaccinate young girls against a sexually transmitted virus. She has also (of course!) named Mexican-American woman / politician / person of the year by numerous Hispanic organizations nationwide. Go figure.

H&R Block Wants you to Pay Taxes (Latino Style)

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I love marketers; always so accommodating to our Latin lifestyle! Whatever that might mean.

In the most recent sign that Corporate America really likes us (and wants our money) H&R Block today announced that it has opened not one but 257 Latino offices designed specifically to serve Hispanic tax payers.

“These new offices have been designed to provide a family-friendly and culturally inviting environment for Latino clients. The offices feature work by local Hispanic artists, a children’s play area and magazines, all designed to make clients’ overall tax preparation experience easier and less stressful,” said the company in a press release.

Oh, such disappointment! And I thought accommodating Latinos meant we would have “tamale” vendors while we wait, or direct access to Mexican accountants specialized in not paying taxes at all, or at the very least coyotes for hire available to do the trámite for us with a simple mordida.

Now, that would be a real Latino tax experience! (Who has heard of paying taxes anyway?)

English is for Business. Spanish is for Gossiping

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In a story this past Sunday about English-only policies in the workplace, the New York Times quoted some ‘brilliant’ cultural insights from Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the founding president of the Center for Work-Life Policy, which in October did a study among Latina executives, finding that many refrained from speaking Spanish at work because they felt that doing so would hurt them professionally.

“Spanish is not associated with business connections. It’s associated with gossiping or wasting time,” she said.

¡Pero mamita! Doesn’t she know we Latinas like el chisme and wasting time in both, English and Spanish?

¡Pepe el Toro es Inocente! (and He’s Made of Vinyl)

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And speaking of godly figurines, I’m happy to report that my people (i.e. Mexicans) have finally done it. And by this I mean, a couple of nutty, very creative guys have come out with a vinyl-made collectible figuring of Pepe el Toro, that endearing character played by Pedro Infante in one of the most tragic and intense films ever made. Ever.

Julio Iván “Rictus” and Juan Alarcón are selling their Pepe el Toro figurines like hot cakes, and are reportedly already preparing their next Golden Era vinyl hit: Jorge Negrete.

But wait! what about Chachita and la Chorreada?

My Blog (Which is Also Yours) Turns One Today

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So much for the bitching and complaints about so-called Hispanic marketing. Today is a happy day, as my blog turns one year old! Yep, it was on Jan. 24, 2007 when I decided to do something totally productive with my newly created unemployed status free time.

It took only a year to realize that this is exactly what I like doing, except -of course- nobody gives me a dime for my ramblings. Oh well, as if everything had to be about money…

Así que, common, drop me a line and help me at least reach the 100,000 visitors mark. Why? just because…