Dear Mexican: I’m not Mexican (or from a Spanish-speaking country for that matter), but I get mad when the gabachos in my town say that all Mexican girls do is take drugs and get pregnant, drop out of school and end up on welfare. I know a lot of Mexican women who haven’t done any of these things. When gabacho girls do drugs or get pregnant, no one gets on their case. Why is it that if a Mexican girl gets pregnant, people just scoff at her and blame her Latino heritage; but if a gabacha girl gets pregnant, people automatically sympathize with her? - Annoyed with Gabacho Hypocrites


Dear Gabacho: The same reason mentally deranged gabachos who go on murderous sprees get classified as “disturbed,” while mentally deranged brown folks, whether Mexican or Muslim, get their killings attributed to race or religion. Same reason why neo-Nazis get their idiocies dismissed as the mere ramblings of meth heads, while Chicano Studies majors get their discipline savaged as teachings on par with those of Goebbels. You’re right to be annoyed. As I continually argue, culture isn’t the sole determinant to all the pathologies of an ethnic group or even the most important one, which leads me to… 


I work in education and have a serious concern about the performance of Hispanic children in our school district. There seems to be a misguided approach to bring back bilingual education for Hispanic children. The poor performance of these children and other minority groups has been ongoing. The group of children that bucks this trend is Asian students. There are exceptions to this general breakdown but the numbers are undeniable. - Not of the Asian Persuasion


Dear Pocho: I can cite stats that show bilingual education holds down Mexis or creates little Einsteins out of them, so will limit my remarks to note that most people who oppose bilingual education tend to lean right. If parents want their chamacos in immersion classes, why don’t you let them have that option. I’m not offering excuses – far from it, this Mexican tries to speak at least once a month to high school students about the necessity of finishing la prepa and beyond – but I don’t dwell on the achievement gap, and neither should you. If you care about Mexis and education, do something about it – don’t whine that chinitos are better.