What Else Would Speedy Gonzales Be Chasing?

Every time I relent and decide to reconsider the value of the criticism I have received for "outing" Speedy Gonzales as a handy purveyor of "Mexican"-ness in the Americas, I run into something like the bumper sticker below. The thesis of Tex[t]-Mex is pathetically simple: that the more you study it, the more you realize the semiotic history (and, unfortunately, destiny) of "Mexicans" in the Americas--"Mexican" are nothing more and nothing less that the choice U.S.A. synecdoche (part for whole, as in "all 'hands' [sailors] on deck") for criminality and sexuality.



Still and all, I love the little bugger and this bank does not totally suck!

Memory Lane: The Hot Tamale Kid

When I was not scarfing down Milky Ways, reading comics, and pasting Wacky Packages to the good furniture in our house, I was probably at the candy aisle at Barrera's Stop & Shop in Laredo, Texas on Corpus Christi Street, buying more processed sugar and looking for more tasty morsels of inked gold! (more comics!). Occasionally, I would buy these "Mexican" laced goodies, "Hot Tamales" immortalized on Jason Liebig's flickr site. Little did I know that decades later I would be adding another chapter to my growing list of collectable "Mexicans." "Maria" meet "The Hot Tamale Kid"--a marriage made in heaven (at least a sort of Francis Galton meets Westworld heaven).

Speaking of Wacky Packages, here's one that had me rolling on the floor back in the day...


... and one that makes me cringe now...