<i> Viva Mexico!</i> Of Tacos, Burritos and Other Rare Tidbits

Since our culture in Los Angeles is to an important degree Mexican, I am glad to have a letter from Ernesto Sanchez Valenzuela of Mexicali, straightening me out about several things Mexican.

Valenzuela, a mathematics teacher, is director of the preparatory school of the Center of Technical and Superior Education in Mexicali, Baja California.

“I have been reading your column since long ago; in fact, I buy The Times just to read your wise words and the comic strips.”

Ordinarily I do not quote such words of praise, but I can’t resist noting that I am compared with the comic strips.

“For years,” Valenzuela says, “I’ve been eager to comment on the following misunderstandings of the Mexican culture, things that people in the U.S.A. should know.”

First, he disabuses us of the notion that cinco de mayo (the 5th of May) is Mexico’s most important holiday. (He notes that in Castilian, names of months are not capitalized.) “Our really big day is 16 de septiembre, the initiation of the war of independence” (from Spain, in 1810).

Mexicans do celebrate cinco de mayo, he says, because it represents one of the few battles Mexico has won from a foreign power (the victory over the French at Puebla in 1862); but Independence Day is more important.

On cinco de mayo, Valenzuela says, “everybody goes to work (at least those who are not sleeping under a cactus with the sombrero on their face) and children go to school.”

The 16 de septiembre is something else. “We have a parade, fiestas and borrachera , starting the celebration one night before with the Ceremonia del Grito Independencia. The governor shouts, ‘ Viva los heroes de la independencia! Viva Miguel Hidalgo! Viva Mexico! and all the people respond with much animosity.” (Valenzuela perhaps means animation .)

Of more immediate interest to English-speaking Angelenos are Valenzuela’s notes on Mexican food. “A taco is a tortilla rolled, or folded, over any kind of food. The burrito is a special type of taco that was invented in Sonora and consists of a rolled flour tortilla with smashed dried beef inside (originally burro meat; that’s how it got its name).

“You can call either one a taco. And to talk about bean burritos or cheese burritos is an aberration. It is not correct to differentiate a burrito from a taco because, as I made clear, they are both tacos.”

I don’t follow that. If a burrito is a taco, and a taco is a tortilla folded around food, why isn’t a tortilla folded around cheese or beans a burrito, since cheese and beans are food?

Perhaps the point is that a burrito is supposed to be folded around meat , either beef or burro. That would distinguish it from a taco, which can be folded around any food. Since we norte Americanos don’t eat burro (not knowingly, anyway) I would call a burro burrito an aberration. (This is making me hungry.)

Valenzuela also deplores the improper use of the exclamation ole! “The Mexicans seldom use the interjection ole! outside of a bullring. It is a Spanish expression that came into Mexico as did the toreros and the manolos and all those ingredients of the corrida de toros. We don’t shout ole! in the street or in parties; the Spaniards do, but not us.”

Valenzuela also straightens us out about the popular phrase que sera, sera. That is a misnomer, he says. The original phrase, as in the Italian song, was che sera, sera, meaning “whatever will be will be--destiny cannot be changed.” However, some Mexican musicians translated it into que sera, sera, which means simply “What is going to happen?” This causes confusion among us “people of the north,” he says, “because we use the Mexican colloquialism with the Italian meaning.” I admit having been guilty of that.

“My intention in sending you this,” he adds, “is truly one of collaboration with one whom I admire. You are one of the persons I would like to invite to dinner sometime (better than Hitler, Noriega or Hussein).”

I did not miss Valenzuela’s innuendo in remarking that all Mexicans go to work on cinco de mayo “at least those who are not sleeping under a cactus with the sombrero on their face.” This standard stereotype of the Mexican is of course belied by the fact that nobody works harder in our society than our immigrants from the south.

I was curious about Valenzuela’s word borrachera , in reference to the celebration of 16 de septiembre . I find in my Spanish dictionary that it means “drunkenness, spree, binge, great exaltation, piece of folly.” I will assume that Valenzuela used it in the sense of “great exaltation.”

I have just interrupted my work on this piece to go down the hill to the Mexican restaurant for a beef burrito.

Que sera, sera.