Comments on: Cinco de Mayo musings and the alcohol industry – Our culture is still for sale

By: Drowning our Misery with Cerveza this 5 de Mayo

Drowning our Misery with Cerveza this 5 de Mayo — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:55:48 +0000

[...] club or bar, where people will be getting on their drinko for the cinco. Last year, I wrote a blog post about my experiences with this holiday as pertaining to some advocacy work I had been involved in [...]

By: ListenToLeon

ListenToLeon — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:56:07 +0000

I started typing a long comment, but I lost my connection Here’s what I said:

The liquor companies have too much money on the line on Cinco de Mayo, so it’ll be quite a challenge getting the promotions to stop.

I am a fellow humor writer of color, so I can sort of empathize with Gustavo Arellano. Just being a minority with the public eye on you, means that you are going to get looked at as a voice of the people, whether you like it or not. Especially if you voice your opinion on a subject that matters to people. Comedy is a wonderful thing, but as you see, one misstep or poorly recieved joke can end up getting you called out and/or labeled.

Love the blog so far…Very interesting stuff

By: Michaelr

Michaelr — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:54:39 +0000

BettyM makes an excellent point regarding Gustavo Arellano’s irresponsible written comments rationalizing various levels of intoxication for celebration. However, one reading of his “Ask a Mexican,” glossary is enough to wonder whether he could physically stand up to the written offensives he dishes out. As a community, we are sorely in need of role models and political leaders. Gloria Molina and Gloria Romero aren’t going to be around forever, and politicians like Fabian Nunez have only embraced the ugly stereotypical self-serving Latino political character.

By: lo

lo — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:32:19 +0000

the funny thing is that mexico is such a large and regionally diverse republic that the stereotypes prevalent in the u.s. really apply to no one in mexico…it just shows that the majority of the u.s. lacks any savoir of global cultures.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:19:53 +0000

Gustavo can be very funny – too often he has decided to be a comedian rather than an interpreter of the Latino world for Anglos. Some of his work is quite good – this piece has some good lines if he was doing stand-up comedy – but this wasn’t the time of or place for that.

Our community, regrettably, still has not found a voice. Gustavo isn’t up for that.

By: PMG!

PMG! — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:39:26 +0000

Having met Gustavo, I find he considers himself to be a satirist. And with a satirist, the trick is to to know when he is lying and when he is telling the truth (often found inbetween the lines) In fact, that is the reason for his whole column...

Now, whether or not he succeeds is a whole other argument...

By: BettyM

BettyM — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:02:22 +0000

It is very sad that most people think that a celebration is not complete unless you get drunk. Mr. Arellano says the holiday “gives you a pass to get as drunk as possible” – I find this very disturbing and it is not funny. I believe there are greater densities of liquor stores in minority neighborhoods because they are quite profitable. Too bad, there should be more schools and parks in minority neighborhoods.