How to Cope with Montezuma's Revenge?

By Gustavo Arellano

Dear Mexican: I’m a handsome exemplar of the bronce race living in the motherland. I’m dating a beautiful and wonderful gringuita who is soon taking a trip over the border from the U.S. to Mexico for the first time to visit me, and my pinche big family. There are a couple of things that worry me though. First of all, she seems to have a fairly pessimistic view of Mexico (probably due to anti-Mexican propaganda and inherited biased family ideas). She says that she’s very excited to visit but I can sense that there’s fear in her. What would you suggest me (and the readers) to do so I can erase all her wrong gabacho misconceptions of la madre patria? Secondly, I fear for her health once she gets to eat real Mexican food. What can I do to ameliorate the devastating effects our unique cuisine has on unsuspecting foreigners, and spare her from Moctezuma’s revenge while still allowing her to delight herself in some great enchiladas or chiles rellenos?

El Guapo de México


 
Dear Handsome One from Mexico: To ameliorate your beloved’s fears, just give her a nightly dose of your chorizo. As for Montezuma’s revenge, I cite my answer from my libro, which you should buy a fourth copy of just for the hell of it : “One of the worst cultural insults you can throw at people is to say that their food gives you diarrhea, and that’s why the English language has so many euphemisms for the thing–Gandhi’s revenge, Gyppy tummy, Delhi belly, the Rangoon runs, Tokyo trots. But none has stuck better in the gabacho mind than Montezuma’s revenge, named after the Aztec emperor who lorded over Tenochtitlán when the Spaniards came. Spanish accounts maintain that Ol’ Monty love to drink his chocolate laced with muchos chiles, and his digestive tract cleared out almost daily. Whether it’s true or not is a matter of historical intrigue, but the stereotype was quickly gobbled up by gabachos eager to fulfill their critique of Mexicans as a dirty, ugly race whose food can cause that disgusting stuff. That’s the gabacho way—blame their weak digestive tract on the natives.”

A news story some time ago mentioned that a Centers for Disease Control study shows that 96% of all U.S. adults have had sex. However, breaking this down by ethnic group, the same study showed only 88% of all Mexican-American adults in the U.S. have ever had sex, the least of any ethnic group polled, leaving 12% without knowing the pleasures of relaciones sexuales. This appears to buck the stereotype that Mexicans are somehow spicier in matters of the sack than the rest of us, and the uglier stereotype that they breed like rabbits. I’m curious; besides the possibility of the effects of growing up with pervasive, strict Catholic guilt, are there cultural, biological, or genetic reasons why so many of your fellow mexicanos are not experiencing the joys of gettin’ it on with un amante of choice?
Gabacho Mariposa de Tejas
Dear Gay Gabacho from Texas: Not only that, but another CDC report showed that Latinos were the ethnic group with the lowest rate of people who at least had oral sex before losing their virginity—39 percent compared to 56.6 percent of gabachos. Fact is, many Mexicans retain small-town puritanical values, which also explains why so many of our girls get pregnant. Wish there was a joke in all this, but the only chiste here is the lack of sex education in the Mexican community—that, and a Pepito line showing the absurdity of it all, of course.