Dear Mexican: Just suppose that all of the southwestern United States had remained in Mexican hands. Would the Mexicans have done any better with it than they have with the present confines of Mexico? - Reversible Reconquista?


Dear Gabacho: The gran parlour game! If we turn back the clock and changed a couple of things – if Austin, Houston, and their fellow invading gabachos actually became Mexican citizens respecting the rule of the land instead of merely pretending to become so, if Mexico hadn’t suffered the theft of its lands or nearly gone bankrupt spending so much money in battling its ravenous neighbor to the north – would Mexico have been better off? The easy answer is sí – more land in a country generally means more possibilities for development, and California’s 1849 Gold Rush (which made the American Southwest the mecca it became for Americans) would’ve happened on Mexican soil, meaning Mexico would’ve been the beneficiary of all those prospecting migrants and subsequent worldwide attention. And with no neocolonial ties left – with no debts to any European powers due to fighting so many wars, with no appropriating of natural resources and lands by American industrialists taking advantage of a weak country, and with the United States itself weaker due to the lack of a Southwest and all of its subsequent treasures – Mexico would’ve been in a much stronger position to enter the Industrial Revolution and emerge a better, reformed land. 


I know many Mexican names translate to English: Michael is Miguel, Juan is John, and so forth.Mexican names seem rooted in the Bible in general (everyone knows a Mexican named Jesús with a best buddy named Gabriel, right?). My name is Adam, and I don’t know what the Mexican version of Adam is. I think there isn’t one. Every time I order at a restaurant and the cashier is Mexican and they ask my name, I check the receipt and it’s wrong. They have a hard time pronouncing it too. I’ve got receipts back before with Asham, Awarm, Alad, Aman, Aden. Mexicans seem devoutly religious. Do they not read Genesis, or is there a Mexicano version of Adam and Eve with different names? - Gabacho Y Eva


Dear Gabacho: If you bothered to read the Spanish version of Genesis, you’d know “Adam” is Adán. Next!