I recall once as a child being in an occasion where I needed to don a costume (I don’t think it was Halloween, but I can’t remember what it was), and I wound up using a poncho and sombrero because it was on hand.
That moment flashed back into my brain when I read a report originating in the Oakland Tribune newspaper that says Latino activists are upset with one of those Halloween-themed stores that has cropped up in the Oakland suburbs.
IT SEEMS THAT along with all the other cheap junk they’re selling to make some money off of the Halloween holiday Saturday is a costume that is meant to make one a “Mexican man.”
The costume? A colorful, striped poncho that looks like a rainbow, a straw sombrero and fake bushy mustache, as though the image of a Mexican man is that of the Frito Bandito. It has the activists upset that someone thinks Mexican people can be so simply depicted with a ridiculous image.
At least when I wore such a get-up, it was the real thing. This costume is a cheap knockoff that was probably made in China.
The smart aleck in me is inclined to say that no self-respecting Mexican would wear such a ridiculous-looking poncho, unless he was planning to march in a Gay Pride Parade – in which case his overly Catholic family would be the ones clogging up the local church, praying for his soul.
THE MORE SERIOUS-MINDED person in me thinks this image is just ridiculous on a holiday when people do ridiculous things. Seriously, what person over the age of 10 gets worked up over Halloween?
If they do, we have more serious problems than the fact that they might wear a stupid costume such as this one.
If anything, this costume doesn’t even create the most outrageous image of this Halloween season – that would go to the “illegal alien” outfit that was being sold in some mainstream stores.
This thing is turning up in holiday-themed junk shops.
IF WE REALLY wanted to get back at this particular outfit, what we Latinos ought to do is dress up on Saturday in bib overalls, have some country music playing in the background, and get overly passionate with a first cousin or two who is dressed similarly.
Of course, if we do that, then we will be the ones at the local Catholic church on Sunday, praying for forgiveness for our own souls, along with the parents who are still in church praying for the redemption of their loved one who “dresses” funny.
If it seems by reading this commentary that I’m not exactly taking it all that seriously, you’d be correct.
This strikes me as a stupid controversy because the ultimate punishment for people who actually spend their money on such a ridiculous costume is going to be paid on Saturday.
JUST THINK OF the reaction that “Mexican Man” wearing “tonto” will get if he shows up at an adult-themed Halloween party. At the very least, that woman in the French maid costume won’t be seen standing within 10 feet of him at any point in the rest of her life.
And if you get some Anglo parent who thinks it “cute” to dress up their child in a “Mexican Man” costume for the day’s trick-or-treating, they’re going to be the ones all worked up at day’s end.
Because their kid will be the one covered with welts from where everybody else pelted them with Halloween candy.
The only real tragedy is that it wasn’t the parent who got pelted with a Snickers bar or two.
-30-
EDITOR’S NOTE: Officials with the Spirit Halloween chain of stores have refused to say (http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_13662212?nclick_check=1) much of anything about why they were carrying this particularly silly getup on their shelves.
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