Dear Wab: Author Ken Tucker recently published Scarface Nation: The Ultimate Gangster Movie and How It Changed America, but save some money and refry this: the basis for the popularity of Tony Montana is the same as why Bonnie and Clyde became folk heroes during the Great Depression and la misma razón porque Dubya was re-elected in 2004 – America loves its up-from-stupidity outlaws. Cholos, on the other hand, love Montana for the obvious reason: por pendejos. I get the socioeconomic rationale for Montana’s deification in thug culture – his rise from poverty through riches via machismo, guile and the white chica – but Mexicans who worship him insult our culture for falling under the spell of a coño. Whatever happened to the days when the killers Mexicans lionized – Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa, Gregorio Cortez – slaughtered for the ’hood that was la raza? Not only that, but the celebration of drug kingpins in Mexico? (Answer redacted by the Mexican’s editor because he doesn’t want his prize wab to turn up in a ditch!)

Dear Heroic Child: Your uncle was partly right. Article IX of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo originally stated that “the relations and communication between the Catholics living in the territories [conquered by the U.S. during the Mexican-American War]… shall be open, free and exempt from all hindrance whatever… and this freedom shall continue, so long as a new demarcation of ecclesiastical districts shall not have been made, conformably with the laws of the Roman Catholic Church.” In other words, Mexican Catholics could cross between the two countries for religious purposes, but no one else. However, American authorities removed this provision from Article IX before signing the treaty and struck Article X, which guaranteed that the American government would respect the property rights of their new wards. Better yet, let’s all just get over the fact that the southwest United States once belonged to Mexico – as I’ve written before, Mexico ruled those territories from 1812 until 1848, a chronological fart between the much-longer reigns of the Spaniards (212 years), gabachos (158 years), and the Native Americans (eternal).

Ask the Mexican at askamexiican@mcweekly.com .