Mexico Trucker Online

This is the abbreviated tale of Gustavo Arellano, a twerpy-looking 28-year-old flaco wearing canvas sneakers and horn-rimmed glasses.

Not exactly the image of the radical Southern California Chicano you might expect if you’re a regular reader of his nationally syndicated column “Ask A Mexican!” – a column fabricated as a joke almost three years ago at the alternative newspaper Orange County Weekly, where Arellano works as an investigative reporter and food critic.

The column, with irreverent social commentary and equally satirical take on the Mexican culture, became an instant hit.

“I go after the misconceptions. That’s the dragon I want to slay,” Arellano said before a recent talk and daylong El Paso tour promoting his book based on the column.

The column shoved Arellano into the national spotlight and guest appearances on “Today,” “Nightline,” National Public Radio, “The Situation with Tucker Carlson” and “The Colbert Report.” He contributes to the Los Angeles Times.

So is this guy for real — as the cholos might say — or is he just another entertainer hidden behind the mask of journalism, waiting for the celebrity balloon to pop?

Arellano, born in Anaheim to Mexican immigrants, calls himself “The Mexican.” His publicity photo shows him eating a tamal. Is he really clever, or simply full of it?

California is, after all, la tierra de make-believe, where plastic-enhanced chicks emerge as starlets and often fade just as quickly.

Arellano’s tias and friends n Anaheim still call him “Guty,” the nickname he acquired as a boy growing up in a working-class barrio populated by his parents and other Mexican immigrants. He likes to say his father arrived in America in the trunk of a Chevy but eventually gained legal status.Arellano’s harshest critics often accuse him of promoting stereotypes and racism against Mexicans. The column is illustrated with a caricature of a fat Mexican wearing a big sombrero and a gold tooth.

Arellano acknowledged that he rubs some people the wrong way, including real Mexicans, Chicanos and Mexican-Americans. He sometimes smacks Mexicans around in the column for their machismo and racist attitudes toward blacks.

“I try to be satirical, outrageous,” he said. “Only somebody who is too full of himself would ever imagine that the column bashes Mexicans and doesn’t support immigrants.”

Ultra-conservatives often submit questions intending to provoke a racist response in the column.

“Such individuals are likely to feel his sharp tongue,” said Dennis Bixler-Márquez, director of Chicano Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso. “He employs humor, satire, sarcasm and an irreverent communication style in his quest to demolish stereotypes.”

Arellano describes himself as a serious journalist representing an under-represented minority in the profession. He often writes about Hispanics and their issues in a part of California that historically has been anti-immigrant.

“My agenda is to show that really there’s no mystery to Mexicans. We’re the Irish with a tan,” he said. “It’s all about going into the belly of the beast and beating them at their own game.”

“The Mexican” sampled Chico’s Tacos and marveled at the Mexican universe he discovered, a microcosm of El Paso in one noisy restaurant: little Mexicans speaking English and tethered to their iPods; the jukebox playing hip-hop and “Volver, Volver”; gente stopping by for an extra cheese fix after the football game; immigrant families; and people switching between English and Spanish — flawlessly.

“It was all raza, as American as anything else,” Arellano said.

If you look behind the facade, behind the mask of the luchador, you might catch a real glimpse of this little vato who looks like a geek but is proud of who he is and has a true passion for what he’s about, regardless of what the critics say.

“I’ll ride the wave as far as it goes,” he said.