What's In A Name?

Latino. Hispanic. Chicano. Spanish.




When people ask me what I am I typically say American. It usually begs a follow-up or clarifying question as to my background or ethnicity and I’ll let them know that my family hails from Mexico. Though it’s not a terribly important debate in political philosophy I think hyphens are a little silly and are very misleading. After all exactly what would make someone Mexican-American? Could someone be termed American-Mexican? And how Mexican does one have to be in order to be called both Mexican and American? And how far back to we go with ethnicity or cultural background? Mexico has plenty of people descending from natives to the land. The people were invaded or mixed with nearly every country in Western Europe, most notably the Spanish whose land was at different times dominated by Jewish people, the Romans, and the Moors. Does that also make me part African-American? The hyphens are silly and do little to accurately represent ones cultural background.



Getting away from the hyphens we have all of these other names with which to designate ourselves. Spanish seems like an odd one. Here in New York it’s the one I hear most often. “What’s his background,” someone may ask when referring to me or someone with a similar family history. “He’s Spanish,” is often the reply. I’m about as Spanish as Gary Busey is sane- it’s a place I’ve visited and perhaps share some ancient connection to it but it does little to accurately describe anything about me. Around these parts Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Cubans, they’ll all be referred to as Spanish. That would be correct if the question was about which language they speak but not about their background. Not really, anyway. I would hardly refer to George Clooney as “that English guy.” Bill Gates isn’t considered British. And Fernando Valenzuela is not Spanish. Javier Bardem, that guy is Spanish. Julio Iglesias, also Spanish. Antonio Banderas, that guy is Spanish as well. Me? Not so much. Obviously it’s easier to say Spanish than go through the litany of possible countries from which a Spanish speaker could hail, but we do have other words which we have agreed upon for such designations.



There is Chicano. I’ve found several stories detailing the etymology of the term but the one that appears the most is that it is a shorthand way of saying Mexicano and specifically refers to people of Mexican descent. The way I hear it, “Mexicano” was shortened to “Xicano” and since no one really knows what sound the letter X is supposed to make (is it a Z? An H? does it sound like KS), people agreed upon the CH sound. Some say it was primarily used as a derogatory term but I think it was used more out of naiveté or ignorance. This was around the time words like “negro” and “colored” were being used and while it would be terribly insensitive to use these words today political correctness and cultural sensitivity were not what they are today. Calling someone Chicano was the label for the children of Mexican immigrants and it was chosen and it became a way to label someone in the simplest of terms. In any event the term took on a negative connotation but eventually came to be embraced and used for a political movement. The Chicano Movement has its roots in the mid 1800s but didn’t really gain traction until the 1950s and 60s. It’s a fascinating time and I will address it in a future post but for now we’ll have to move on. Having grown up in the 80s and 90s, just a little bit after a great era of political and cultural awareness, I personally never associated the label of Chicano with a political movement. It was just another way people referred to people like me.



The terms Hispanic and Latino are often used interchangeably but don’t always mean the same thing. “Hispanic” as a word has its history going back to both the Greek and Roman Empires where the root word was used to describe the Iberian Peninsula, the area that comprises Spain, Portugal, Andorra and part of France. It eventually became the Latin word for Spain. As such, groups that have a primarily Spanish ancestry or influence are Hispanic but aren’t Latino unless they are also part of Latin America. It is thought that Latino was originally intended to refer to someone of Latin American ancestry. Thus it is accurate to consider a Mexican either Hispanic or Latino but someone from Spain can only be Hispanic. Either way I don’t see the need to split hairs as neither term is considered descriptive of race or specific ethnicity or background. When it comes to filling out that census information, in the eyes of the government I think I’m considered white. And let me tell you, I have some cousins who look anything but white.



So is there a term that is more correct than others? Do I have a preference? Not really. I’ve heard all of the derogatory terms thrown around, too. I’ve been called a beaner and spic (though I had no idea what a spic was at the time- I’m still a little fuzzy about it). I’ve been called a wet-back. It’s extremely rare that I have heard those terms and when I do it does not make the person saying them any more powerful or vicious; if anything it makes them sound outdated or anachronistic. Those words carry very little weight because I think that mine is a culture that gives very little power to terms for which we have no use. It isn’t a matter of reclaiming pejoratives and making them our own because we don’t want or need those words. They’re silly and to use them, trying to give new meaning to them, would be a waste of effort because it would only give attention to the intended insult. But getting back to the terms like Spanish, Hispanic, Latino, or Chicano… As I stated above I think Spanish is really inaccurate. As for the others, I guess any of them will do if a label is necessary. Personally I prefer to go by Eric.

Why Do You Thound Different?

Growing up in Southern California, not far from Los Angeles, most everyone who spoke Spanish sounded the same as members of my family who spoke Spanish. The same inflection in the same places, same cadence, the same pronunciation… There were very little discrepancies in this social agreement of how the language sounds. Even the few accents that stood out, the few Puerto Ricans or Salvadorians that I knew, were not far off from what was familiar. The vagaries of encountering an unfamiliar accent were easily explained away by associating that particular accent only with that person. As a child it made sense that everyone spoke Spanish the same way and those who did not were completely unique in their pronunciation. When I heard Ricky Ricardo and the relatively direct and forward nature of the way his Cuban Spanish I assumed that was because he was always on the verge of slapping his wife. Outside of Ricky and a couple of others, everyone spoke the same way as far as I could tell.

The first time I heard a completely different system of pronunciation was when I was eleven years old and we took a family trip across Europe with stops in Spain. Their Spanish sounded different from what I’d heard my whole life to that point. It had a certain lilt to it. The emphasis came on different syllables than from what I was used to hearing. And of course there was the lisp. As a small child and I had quite the lisp. I was taunted and I was self conscious about it and I distinctly remember spending hours standing in front of the bathroom mirror staring at my mouth and forcing my tongue to stay in place when pronouncing those “s” versus “th” sounds. Then years later here was that lisp all around me! I realized the problem wasn’t that I had had a lisp as a child but that I was speaking Castillian Spanish! This was also my first encounter with a true class system which was really weird. There has always been the stereotype that Europeans are rude and see Americans as loud and obnoxious. Over the course of our trip those stereotypes had mostly gone unfounded. The Germans were stern and efficient but polite and straightforward. The Swiss and Italians were nothing if not welcoming. But Spain was a little different. For the most part we were treated kindly but on the edges of society, the café at the train station or the clerk at the local store, we were met with disdain. It was enough that we were American but we also spoke the language like Mexicans! Sin upon sin! Weird. Like I said, most everyone was nice but there were a few punks with bad attitudes.

FYI, people who are supposed to be Spanish have often claimed that the aforementioned lisp is in emulation of the adored King Ferdinand. There is absolutely no evidence to support this. Just wanted to let you know.

Once I got to New York there was an entirely new world of Spanish to hear. Mexicans are not the majority Hispanic culture as they are in Southern California. In New York there are Spanish speakers from the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and many other places off the mainland, places that we think of when we say “Caribbean.” As such the Spanish language has been influenced by so many other cultures including the natives of those areas, the other invading nations like the Dutch, French, and British, the slave traders and the slaves themselves. Everyone brought with them their own culture which influenced how the dominating language, Spanish, is now spoken. To my ears the Spanish spoken here in New York has a completely different rhythm. It seems more sing-songy to me, with the inflection continually ascending rather than descending. Mexican Spanish seems to share the same mode of pronunciation as American English in that as we speak we typically put the heaviest emphasis on the final syllable of the sentence unless we are specifically trying to make a point or draw attention somewhere else. The Spanish I hear around the Big Apple tends to have the heaviest emphasis at the beginning with the weight placed on the words tends to rise as the sentence continues. The slang is different too. They don’t even know what a “cholo” is around here (lucky bastards). Of course neither cited nor done any of my own scientific research, I’m merely going what I’ve heard around the water cooler.

I guess the root of it all is that whenever you have a language spoken by disparate groups of people they are going to develop their own ways and rules for how to speak that language. That’s why Latin became French, Spanish, and Italian. That’s why I could barely understand what anyone was saying when I visited Ireland, though remarkably the more I drank the easier it was to comprehend. And that’s why I have something to write about today.

Also, for those of you visiting from Brazil, stop asking if I speak Spanish only to start speaking Portuguese because I have no idea what you are saying. IT’S A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE.

The Tortilla

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, a flour tortilla with butter is probably the best snack ever. I have held this opinion for as long as I can remember. Sure I’ve had grilled cheese sandwiches and milk and cookies, I’ve indulged in cheese and crackers or apple slices, but for me nothing tops a flour tortilla with butter. It’s simple and delicious and amazing. All it takes is a few moments on the burner until you get just the right amount of crispy, flakey, texture- you can use a microwave in a pinch but it isn’t as good, smear some butter across that round, heavenly circle of flatbread that I can only liken to the manna of the Old Testament, roll it up and be sure to fold up the bottom end so the butter doesn’t drip on to the floor. There it is. A few moments of sublime satisfaction.

Tortillas and Mexican food are inextricable. Like rice with Japanese food, bread with American cuisine, and debt with President Obama, some things are always going to go hand in hand. These delectable disks of delicious dough derived from the kitchens of heaven have a long and stories history which can be found at the Mission Tortilla Factory at Disney’s California Adventure (sponsored by Mission Foods!) but if you haven’t got an extra hundred bucks for Disneyland and you don’t live in California you can get all of this rich and wonderful history for free here at ImSupposedToBeMexican.com because I love you so much. Tell your friends!

Growing up I always had flower tortillas more often than corn tortillas. Corn tortillas were around and they seemed to be preferred by my grandfather. The more durable texture of the corn tortilla seems to be more suitable for scooping up pinto beans and smearing with sour cream or guacamole whereas flour tortillas are better for wrapping up larger quantities of food as in a burrito or enchiladas. Of course these are anything but hard and fast rules. Though I have a penchant for the flour variety I prefer corn tortillas for tacos, the tortilla lightly toasted with a touch of oil or even fried up in to a crispy shell (I do not, however, like those store bought taco shells that seem to be made to arrive at the store already stale). There are other members of the tortilla family which include gorditas, tostadas, and the gordita’s Salvadorian cousin, the pupusa. I mentioned earlier about heating up a tortilla on the range or, if all else fails, in the microwave. But the best way is by using what you will find in most any Mexican household: the comal. The comal is a flat, cast iron piece of cookware sort of like a skillet that is often handed down from generation to generation. It has to be oiled just so, it never leaves it’s spot on the stovetop, and only gets better and cooks more evenly as time goes on. When my parents got the chance to redo their kitchen they specifically sought a stovetop with a fifth burner where the comal would have a permanent home. FYI, though I am a fan of Chipotle and find their chicken burritos as one of the best anglicized examples of how to bring Mexican food to the palates of Des Moines and Wichita, that device they use to heat up their tortillas is sadly inadequate.

So where in when did people’s love affair with the tortilla begin? For the answer to that question we take a look back through the annals of history long before El Pollo Loco was founded in 1975, or even Taco Bell in ’62. No for the whole story we need go back a little further. According to an a passage in Wikipedia which lacks any form of citation the tortilla dates back at least 10,000 years along with a Mayan legend about a peasant making the first tortilla from ground corn for his hungry king. Given their history of farming corn of course it would be the Mayans or the Aztecs who came up with a million different ways to eat corn including using ground corn to make cornmeal and then said cornmeal into cakes and breads which would eventually find their form as a tortilla. This is not far off from the discovery of other tasty treats like popcorn. Anyway, the great and ancient civilizations who pioneered the foundations of our modern systems of mathematics, astronomy, and art, also loved their vittles which is why so many wonderful foods come from the region. Many of these foods were discovered by the conquistador Cortes who brought them back to Spain. These little flatbreads/cakes, called tlaxcalli by the natives, were given the name “tortillas” by the Spanish, their word for “little cakes.” Weird side note: the Spanish have also given the name tortilla to a potato omelet.

With that long and storied history of the corn tortilla I kept searching for some solid data about the origin of the flour tortilla but kept coming up empty handed. While the ancient civilizations of Mexico and Central America were no strangers to wheat flour, corn was the food staple upon which their lives were based. It makes sense now when I find that flour tortillas are more popular in the northern states of Mexico than they are in the southern states. With all of those wheat fields here in the America it’s logical to assume that as the old empires made their way north some suitable substitutions had to be made when it came to dietary preferences. My mother coming from a region just north of central Mexico told me that as a girl corn tortillas were more popular and easy to come by than their flour counterparts. My dad on the other hand, coming from the northern states bordering America, always had flour tortillas around.

As for state of tortillas today, they’re everywhere. In my lifetime alone they’ve gone from being found in the Ethnic Foods aisle to being found in 7-11. They’ve gone mainstream. Head to old town San Diego or Olvera street in Los Angeles and you will still hear the clapping hands of ladies in the kitchen forming round balls of masa into torillas. By the way, if an elderly woman sarcastically asks you if you are making tortillas it’s probably because you are chewing loudly.

So there is your history of the tortilla. Unlike the Disney attraction I can't give you a free tortilla now that we’re through- quick tip, if you’re visiting the theme park on a budget there is no limit to how many times you can go through the little attraction and there usually is no wait time either. Walk through a few times and you’ve got enough tortillas to keep you satisfied and happy for an afternoon!

Some of the other tortilla related foods I mentioned earlier are gorditas, which are smaller, fatter tortillas that can be stuffed or used as a foundation to pile on meat and beans and cheese and stuff. Tostadas are crispy, fried tortillas often used to pile on other food as well. Think of them as tortilla chips that haven’t been cut apart yet. By the way, anyone in my family will tell you my dad invented colored tortilla chips back in the early 80s. True story. But it will have to wait for another time. Until then, my supposed Mexicans, I am heading to my stovetop to make one of the greatest snacks of all time. Adios!

El Matador...

In these here United States it is difficult to find someone who does not have an opinion one way or the other when it comes to bullfighting. It is either a barbaric and cruel relic of a less civilized time or it is a beautiful art-form and sport that represents a distinct and significant culture. I’ll be more than happy to admit that I am a bit biased towards the latter though I cannot say this has always been the case. The very first time I went to a bull fight I found myself aghast at the brutal nature of the sport. My American sensibilities wanted to shout that this is animal cruelty and this is barbaric and this is obscene! But I was missing the point. That isn’t what bullfighting is about. There is an anecdote, I don’t know how true it is, where Orson Wells was at a dinner at Hearst’s Castle and described an occasion where he sat at the knee of famous Spanish matador, Manolete, and Hearst remarked,“It is barbaric. Of all of man’s sadisms, nothing is more depraved than his cruelty to animals.” Mr. Wells took umbrage and replied quite sharply, “In Spain, sir, the cruelty would be in denying the beast a fighting end. As in your magnificent zoo, for instance.” Point being that there is always more than one point of view.

Last time I went to a bullfight was back in 2004. I was in Spain, in Pamplona, for the Festival of San Fermin and during each day of the festival there are bullfights in the afternoon. There was one matador in particular who had everyone’s attention. I don’t remember his name or any details about him other than that he was a relative newcomer who was making quite a name for himself. Every evening four bullfighters would find themselves in the arena three or four times, each one vying for the adoration of the audience. Each flourish of the cape and confident stride in to harm’s way was an attempt to command the crowd as well as the beast. This particular young matador was all of 19 years old I believe, and perhaps he had such confidence because he had not been instilled with the fear that some of the more mature fighters might have.

His stylish propinquity to the animal, the bravado and showmanship, his very presence captivated the crowd, half of which was under the shade of the stands, the other baking in the hot July sun doing all they could to quell the heat with bottle after bottle of sangria. This young matador demonstrated his mastery over the animal, looking him dead in the eye every time the beast charged, its calamitous hooves shaking the earth beneath them. After the colored barbs and lances, the taunts and runs back and forth across the arena, the matador presented his sword, his estoca, to the adulation of the attendants all clothed in white and red and wine. You know the old Looney-Tunes episodes where Bugs Bunny is fighting a bull and you see the bull dig it one of its hooves into the dirt before it charges? That really happens! Prior to seeing it in real life I thought it was just a comedic exaggeration. But finally it comes to one last charge. I don’t even know how one practices for this- standing your ground in front of a charging, angry, 1600 pound beast with nothing left to lose. A flourish of the cape and the bull builds up speed, charging and thundering through the screams of the crowd, the glare of the matador, and weight of certain death. Stepping to the side, missing the bull’s horns by just inches, and with just a fraction of a turn his blade is gone, disappeared into the hulking neck of the beast. The bull, not knowing he is already dead, spins around and begins his charge again and with that the banderilleros and other toreros rush in to, shaking their capes to distract the animal and keep him from goring the bullfighter but he calmly waves them away. Coming to the austere realization of what has befallen him the bull slows down as he comes upon the matador. Their eyes meet and the bullfighter rests his palm on the beast’s forehead as it falls into sleep one final time.

This kid, whatever his name was, gave an equally impressive performance every time he had the floor. Rapturous applause engulfed the ring at his every appearance. He made the cover of the local newspaper and was shown on the evening telecast. It was pretty amazing and to me he seemed like the very incarnation of Pedro Romero from The Sun Also Rises.

So there is the anecdotal part. Now for some history and technical stuff that might be of interest: Bullfighting is found in many Spanish speaking countries like Spain, Mexico, Columbia, Venezuela, Peru, and Ecuador. It’s most direct early ancestor probably dates to the various games held in coliseums of ancient Rome. People vs people, people vs animals, animals vs animals… it all happened throughout the Roman Empire. Prior to that, pretty much ever since there was man and ever since there have been animals one has been killing the other- usually for food, sometimes for sport, and not uncommonly for sacrifice. There are cave paintings dating back to 200 years Before Christ that show a man facing a bull. Of course it was the Spanish who spread the sport to Central and South America and it was not uncommon for these games to take place at important events like weddings and funerals. According to Wikipedia, The modern style of Spanish bullfighting is credited to Juan Belmonte generally considered the greatest matador of all time. Belmonte introduced a daring and revolutionary style, in which he stayed within a few inches of the bull throughout the fight. Although extremely dangerous (Belmonte himself was gored on many occasions), his style is still seen by most matadors as the ideal to be emulated. Today, bullfighting remains similar to the way it was in 1726, when Francisco Romero, from Ronda, Spain, used the estoque, a sword, to kill the bull, and the muleta, a small cape used in the last stage of the fight.

One particular throwback to the gladiatorial days that still exists is that the bull has the chance to win his freedom. Though it is an extremely rare occurrence, if a bull is valiant and impressive enough, the matador will stand and look up at the President’s (or Governor’s) box. If he gets the indication from el Presidente to spare the animal’s life, the animal is taken from the ring and gets to live out the rest of his days in fields of green, put out to stud from time to time.

Of course as time has gone by and we have become more “civilized” the sport has fallen out of favor with a huge segment of the population. It is after all a pretty violent sport that ends with either the death of a gorgeous animal or the goring of a human being. So there are definitely protests and calls to end the practice in Spain. On one hand, up until the actual bull fight, the bull’s life is much less terrible than it would be in a commercial farm. On the other it is still a slow, torturous death with almost chance of freedom or survival. And for those of you who weren’t sure, yes- the bull from the fight is used for food. And yes again, it is delicious.

Whatever your stance, the one thing everyone can agree on is that it is a significant aspect of Latin-based culture, from Spain and France to North and South America. I’ve never had the chance to get to a bullfight in Mexico but it seems like it would be something worth checking out.

Donde?

Just a reminder that, thanks to all of you glorious supposed Mexicans who give this corner of the internet a look every now and then, entries from this blog have been posted on various websites including:

http://www.hispanicla.com/

http://www.bilingualbraings.com/

and most recently - http://www.labeez.com/

Thanks for reading and check out these other sites because they have some interesting stuff.

-EricV123

Novelas: TV for Audiences who can be Satisfied

My grandmother would usually pick up my brother and I from school every afternoon. We were kids and in all probability annoying as hell but she pretty much gave us run of the house- baseball in the back yard, board games in the patio, action figures and toy cars… We seldom got in to trouble but when we did she certainly reminded us who was in charge. All afternoon she even gave us control of the TV. But that ended as soon as evening came and it was time for the novelas. My aunt would stop by. Mom would be over to pick us up after a long day of work. But before we left they had a cup of coffee and maybe some pan dulce and stopped to see something that could not be found on American television.

For a nation that is relatively wasteful in so many ways, we are sure to squeeze every last bit of value out of out entertainment. Some stick, like the 20+ James Bond movies out there. Some, like the last couple of seasons of Friends, hang around perhaps a bit longer than their sell-by date. And still others run the gamut until they become a parody of their origin; shows like The Real World and its spin-offs, or The Bachelore(tte). This is not the case with the telenovelas (novelas for short) that one will find on Univision or Telemundo. Though there have been some attempts to adopt the model for American audiences it is extremely difficult for consumers and providers to walk away from a hit show.

Here is how novelas work: by definition they are on a limited run, usually lasting less than a year. That might seem like just any old mini-series you’ve seen anywhere but the content differentiates the genre from that of a typical min-series. Novelas are always convoluted love stories with twists and turns in the plot. Generally you will see a couple kissing in the first few minutes of the program and something will happen to drive them apart. 120 episodes later they will be kissing again in the final scene. So you won’t find epic wars fought as in Battlestar Galactica, nor will you find stories of brotherhood as in Band of Brothers. The content is completely relegated to the soap opera type of plots with steamy love scenes and tales of lust and revenge. Again, unlike a typical soap opera there is a designated end planned from the very beginning. They can be period pieces or take place in a contemporary setting but the one thing you can count on is that it will end. You may fall in love with the characters and demand more but that simply isn’t the way these work.

American studios have tried to emulate the model of the novela on various occasions but the results have been rather disastrous. A small television unit called MyNetworkTV tried to use the format but interest fell off quickly after their first season. That may be because audiences weren’t interested in investing their time in something they knew would be over in a matter of months, or it could be because the shows simply weren’t any good. It takes an act of God and a bolt of lightning for a show to have a successful run even if it has major star power and a great time slot. Anyone remember the Cosby Mysteries? Or that one show Michael Richards had after Seinfeld? Whatever the case, the American attempts could not copy the success of their Latino counterparts.

This isn’t to say that the genre has not had a profound influence on American television. While shows like 90210 and Melrose Place were essentially prime time soap operas with characters whose histories the audience followed no matter how outlandish the plot might be, prior to the early 90s I am hard pressed to think of many shows with a season long story arch. Sitcoms like Three’s Company or Cheers were essentially stand alone half hour shows that could be plugged into the season in any order. Occasionally there were two-parters or very special episodes that would have some lasting effect that might be referred to in a later episode. But there wasn’t really a sense of the show being mapped out for the season with a specific goal that the audience is searching for. Moonlighting had the basic premise of a guy and a girl who should be together but were not… And audiences watched it in hopes that they would finally get together, not because they knew that’s what was supposed to happen at the end of season 2. Fast forward to the early 2000s to the appearance of Heroes, Desperate Housewives and 24. Both of these shows had a very specific story arch that would find a conclusion at the end of the season while setting up events for the season that followed. Audiences were captivated by the notion that their time spent in viewership would be rewarded with a conclusion to the story. Had any of these shows simply ended after their first season they would be regarded as culturally significant events that captivated a nation. Instead they are being milked for all they’re worth and have fallen into mediocrity, a step away from oblivion. Ugly Betty was originally supposed to be ABC’s attempt at an American novela but they decided they would rather ride it out until it eventually got cancelled due to dwindling ratings. Twice.

Like soccer, I’m not entirely sure why novelas won’t catch on in America. I guess it’s the same reason we have a fourth Indiana Jones movie and those last three Star Wars abortions. If we can squeeze a few more bucks out of a character, we probably will line up to see it. By the way, let me know how The Real Housewives of DC turns out.

King Taco

I don’t have the same tolerance for spicy foods that my father does. When he wants salsa he wants it so hot he is sweating by the time he gets through his meal. And then he wants a little bit more. I don’t like to need a towel to wipe my brow at the end of a meal but I like a little bit of kick and when I ask for something I want it spicy for real, not white-people spicy. Not Cheesecake Factory we-added-some-extra-black-pepper-and-a-touch-of-cayanne-pepper-spicy but something that is going to burn a little bit and will be made worse if you try to wash it away with water. You can get this at King Taco. You can get the spiciness my dad prefers but if you don’t want the burning depth of hell raging in your mouth you can get a decent kick as well. A good salsa makes all the difference in Mexican food. You could have the sweetest corn cakes, the most savory tamales, or the crispiest chips, but if you don’t have a spicy salsa then you are eating at El Torito or, if they’re still around, Alcapulco’s.

King Taco is on my list of musts every time I get back to Los Angeles, which is a few times per year. My family has been a loyal customer since my childhood. After visiting cousins or extended family, friends, after YMCA youth softball games or sometimes after an early Dodger game, stopping by King Taco- the one on Cypress or maybe the one on Third, depending on where we were coming from, was on the itinerary. Over the years as the brand expanded it got easier and easier to find one, much to my delight. Now they even have a spot in Dodger stadium and that pretty much rocks.

King Taco got its start back in 1969. Raul Martinez and his wife, Maria, lit the barbeque at the park (I’m guessing Leg Lake but that information wasn’t available), a bunch of guys playing soccer nearby finished up and passed by to see what smelled so good. They bought a bunch of tacos and BOOM! A legend was created. Five years later Raul and Maria bought an old ice-cream truck and converted it into a taco truck, an innovation that I think we all take for granted these days. Knowing their audience, Raul, Maria, and Raul father, parked the taco truck outside of a bar one night and had about $70 worth of sales. The next night they doubled that. Six months later the first King Taco restaurant with a permanent address opened at 1118 Cypress Ave. in Los Angeles. The rest is history and with just 21 locations from Commerce to Ontario everyone knows if you want a good taco you go to King Taco.

Part of the appeal is the value. Tacos are just a $1.25 and there is quite a variety to choose from. You can go with the simplicity and ease of carne asada, carnitas, or pollo, but for the real Mexicans, the ones who aren’t just supposed to be Mexican but actually know the Mexican National Anthem (I still have to learn that one), they offer lengua, cabeza, buche, and mollejo. I’d love to just tell those of you who don’t speak Spanish exactly what those are but part of the fun is figuring that out if it’s your first visit. I couldn’t in good conscience, ruin for you but I will say it might seem kind of rowdy if you aren’t terribly familiar with Mexican cuisine.

I may be confusing King Taco with Olvera street from my youth but I thought they used to feature Fanta and/or Orange Bang (along with Piña and Lemon Ole!) but they don’t seem to be on the menu anymore. They do, however, still serve aguas frescas which sounds very good during these summer months. Other menu items include tameles, sopes, and chicken but you go for the tacos. Just like even though Lawry’s Prime Rib has lobster, it’s not what you go there for. With King Taco you go for the tacos.

I won’t be making my way to Southern California for at least another couple of months but already my mouth is watering for some of those delicious tacos. So many nights heading back from Hollywood or wherever and taking an exit off the 60 freeway to pull up to the brightly lit sign with shaved heads and Dickies in front of low-riders on one side and LAPD or LA County Sheriffs on the other side. It’s a good mix. Oh, and if you are heading east on the 60, make sure you hit the right exit because if you can see it from the freeway then you’ve gone too far and you’ll have to back track.