in depth sunday march 6 noon until 3 p.m. eastern. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2. this weekend we are in anaheim, california, with the help of our local cable partner time warner. next, oc weekly editor gustavo arellano author of the nine talks but some of the stereotypes he has witnessed as a latino american. spring the idea for "ask a mexican" actually came from an editor at the oc weekly at the time. he would always ask me questions about mexicans because i was only likely to obstetric i was the only person of color on some fundamental. i would always answer them silly stuff like what does this word mean in spanish was like a mexican like burritos and tacos? i would give a man so. there's a lot of ignorant people about mexicans have questions and we should make fun of them so why don't we do a column called "ask a mexican" come an

advice column if you will will people send in questions about execute under able to answer them. i wasn't offended by the idea of "ask a mexican" but i did want to do it at first because i did think anyone would care. in journalism you want to do stories that people will care about one way or another. you don't care people like you for a job long as they're reading. other who want to read an advice column about mexicans? he kept insisting we need to fill in a space in the paper that wakes i'm like okay fine i'll go back then he said it will only be one time. it would be a surgical -- satirical column, joking. i remembered, he asked it to me before. i go back and this was both an advice column. if we have to start off with dear mexicans, why do mexicans call white people gringos? my response was -- a slightly harsher word for gringos,

mexicans don't go gringos gringos. on the gringos call gringos bring the. mexicans call gringos -- i wrote it, filed a. i thought whatever. i could stand by this. it's funny but i don't have to do this again, i'm fine. i was wrong because people just went absolutely nuts for it. some people love. some people hated. more poorly people were carried and even crazy at the very bottom of the column in this post a joke on, hey, give the spicy question about mexicans? ask me. i'm a mexican. people started sending in questions like crazy immediately. what part of legal don't mexicans understand what is it true that prescott bush stole the have poncho vela? webpage of tortillas? would've a deposit imagine about mexicans from g. rated to triple x-rated. you can imagine that all. people asked them to be and people continue to ask me

questions. to me the funniest one was what our mexicans always so damn happy? i can see them picking strawberries, packed into a truck and they are laughing, busting each other's balls. all about. like why? questions like that, how can you ever forgive them? back to me shows america even what more than 150 years after we took over the american southwest from mexico we are still obsessed with mexicans. mexicans are still a mystery. you could either cry about and say we are misunderstood or tried to examine where that's coming from an answer peoples questions. misconceptions about mexicans have been around in the tide for 150 years. where do you want to start? that we are criminals, the voice of attempting members? the girls all and of dropping out of school at 14 to become pregnant? that we don't care about education to were all catholic, all super brown skin, that we all hate white people, that we all hate salvadorans and puerto ricans and cubans.

that basically mexicans hate everyone except the people we hate the most our mexicans themselves. there are so many misconceptions. some of them are based on stereotypes. my job is to do the research. if people say mexicans love to drink and drive, let's look at the dui rates, that mexicans are more prone to criminality and other groups or races or ethnicities. lets look at the fbi statistics for the bureau of justice. what i try to do with my call is find those stats, give a stats, get a serious answer, give out the stats, but just to liven it up with some humor, with a mexican cuss words. this is not an academic column. i love academia at academic columns suffer from having no humor at all. you have to next academic with a vulgar, with humor, within your face. at the heart called to do but it's a challenge to i love doing it. criticism of "ask a mexican" come from everywhere. it comes from the right wing,

conservatives sync assistant at the american antiwhite column. you have criticisms from the left, this is an anti-mexican politics you are demeaning a very serious subject which is the treatment of mexicans read that into united states. some people think it's not funny. some people say it's not racist enough against mexicans or it's not racist enough against white people. to me that shows the call is doing its duty. i think the question of race is something that's there. it was mexicans special ioc we are the monkeywrenching american racial relationships. historically it was black and white, may be patient and, of course, indians are all on reservations so he cares about them? then you get mexicans. americans have never been able to figure out mexicans. do we hate t you more than blac? are they lower or higher than blacks? a lot of things have been written about and it's interesting. the great oral historian once interviewed a mexican-american in chicago he said we were the buffer zone between the ethnic

whites at chicago and african-americans in chicago, like african-americans could relate to his mexicans because we were not as racist as the white folk. the white people could relate to us because we were not black folks. we were right in the middle. now because what's happening is especially mexicans moving into the south, republican politicians will go to african-americans and say we haven't liked you for almost 200 years by now have this new group, we will like you now because let's unite in taking these mexicans. so those questions are the type of questions i take on and what ioc is look, especially when it comes to race relations in this country, it's been a game of maneuvering and using the news people to demonize the people that follow after. let's get over the. we will never be a postracial society but at the very least we can say okay this is what we have to do. we have more similarities than differences. let's unite against true discrimination. humor has been an amazing tool to talk about serious issues.

i always love satire. i tell people satire is a way to play the fool to make a very important point about issues have been. political humor and satire has been part of the united states since before 1776 for that matter. people don't like being lectured. people don't want to read boring academic text. they want to laugh. but they want to get outraged. they want to laugh. it's an easier pill to swallow when you are laughing. no one wants to be heckled. people want to laugh. people might say screw you, utah is without but that was really funny. i have gotten there before. people so i don't agree with your politics at all that you were really funny. i like reading it. for me as all incremental victories but if you're at least read what i have to say, that means you're paying attention to what you have to say which is far better than what this country is right now where we are not even want to listen to the other point of view. we just demonize it saint say be

it's coming from the person or those political point of view, it's not even worthwhile of me getting th pay attention to it t i think that's just toxic to our country. there will always be opportunities to bring humor into the most racist or horrific of questions but when someone asked me like a mexican man like to write so much, which is not. think about our member reading it. when you get those types of questions you know they're trying to goad you into yelling. yelling doesn't do anything. yelling does not do anything to our member i got partially okay, you think you're really clever, let's play ball. i ended up debunking that question. just a real quick answer. in american history, men of color have always been demonized by the hypersexuality and for frankly their criminal sexual the. the stats just don't merit such a stereotype. stats prove white men are twice were likely to prevent sexual --

commit sexual assault a mexican men are more likely to commit sexual assaults of an african-american you never had a discussed because it's the truth. especial with demagogues. demagogues don't like the truth. that's what i do. i didn't get flustered by the horrific question. i was able to pitch it and is able to cuss at them and many wonderful spanish fork. so i win. i always get the last word. that's the key for me in "ask a mexican." people want me to get angry or just hyperventilate. i will never be like that. some of the worst questions i've gotten have been mexicans talking trash to african-americans. i'm not an apologist but when it comes to "ask a mexican" i tackle hate no matter what it is. if anything can when i get racist or homophobic mexicans i let them have more than they did the racist white people. with white people, you get it, you're done, fun. the mexicans can't cry discrimination if we're doing the same crap that other people are doing to us. what i learned from doing this

column is the american people, but is a lot of racism out there, that is but not as much as you would think. which gladdens me. there is a lot of questions and they did it. you've lived in minnesota, north dakota your entire life, all scandinavians arrange. then all of a sudden there's these mexicans who are living on history. you are good of questions but a lot of the questions don't, i divided between innocently ignorant and willfully ago. the willfully they don't want or like what part of legal don't mexicans understand was why our mexicans so drunk? that's based on someone's biases that they should get over but then your questions that are innocently ignorant. people ask why there's so much mexican music have gone pop music into. the short entries because that type of music, the one with the tuba is called -- the one with the accordion is called -- and they came from german and czech immigrant who came to mexico and

texas in the late 19th century and brought their music with them the mexicans a simulated into a. i'm not going expect the average american should know that a while back also asked something like that racist? if innocent ignorant? at that point my job is to educate those folks. i think a lot of americans are like that. they are innocent ignorant of a lot of the things, a lot of the questions they have that they give to me. what i always what people when they read and i could take away from what is, that mexicans are just like americans if not more so. if anything, this idea, this stereotype about mexicans not being like previous generations of immigrants, it's completely overblown. mexico is right across the border from the united states and is the image and age we are in a globalized society. even if you're from thailand you just get a playwright and a day later you are in thailand. unlike you can keep up agriculture but mexicans have always been assimilating to the center, or the stock when i was uses mexicans are americans and

not just the mexicans are assimilating into the united states. is up to the united states to want to acknowledge that assimilation. to learn. if we get questions about mexicans it is a great experience. it's a great book for you to take on road trips, a great book to take on the airplane. i don't have you read it because of the great thing, it's not something you just have to read from cover to cover. you can pick it up anytime, have a couple laughs, drop it and to do that again. it's an evergreen book. it's a book that will always sell little by little because people will always have questions about mexicans. more importantly eager to learn and to get entertained. >> for more commission on booktv's recent visit to anaheim and the many other destinations in our cities tour go to c-span.org/cities to her. >> this is a booktv on c-span2, television for serious readers. here's our primetime lineup.

>> and now on booktv's "after words," former cia and