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Whitexicanismo in Australia.

Cover Image via Martínez Hernández, Gabriel (2023)

***TRIGGER WARNING***

Just kidding.

I am going to try and work through something though and I invite you to spend some time in my head.

Cultural appropriation is a bit of a bugbear of mine.

I’m a bit of a D&D nerd from way back

I have briefly investigated the phenomena in previous Posts.

As an Australian of Irish heritage that was raised primarily around Aboriginal communities (until my High School years) I have found the whole process somewhat confusing and usually poorly articulated. This, for a brief while, was also exacerbated by my foray into the medicinal and culinary practices of México and Mesoamerica in general. I have many wonderful friends from México who have done much to allay these concerns, in particular a Chilango amigo of Tlaxcaltecan descent, and find that their humour, attitudes and philosophies mesh very well with both Australian and Irish mentalities. Dark, self deprecating humour and a general don’t give a damn for fools attitude. These people accept me for my quirks and have shown a great deal of love for me and my love of Mexico. You guys rock. Thank you.

I have even been blessed by this wayward group of hooligans by being asked to present educational talks on Mexico at my State Museum.

I have however recently run afoul of a “whitexican” which has prodded my curiosity.

The whole process was instigated by the return of lucha libre to my home town.

Someone however decided to use this visit as an opportunity to complain.

Now, before I continue (and I must admit I started the whole following process somewhat poorly) I feel the need to delve into the term “whitexican” as it is something that has come up sporadically and I’ve not really put much attention into it; and I reiterate……..

So. Whitexicanismo. ¿Qué es?

“Mexicans more gringos than gringos.”

 Whitexican (derived from the English white, ‘blanco’ and mexican, ‘mexicano’; mexicanos blancos)

Go Golden Junk (and Zoop One) put it thusly.

Whitexican is considered to be a pejorative (1) term used in Mexican Spanish to refer to white-skinned Mexicans who usually have social and economic advantages in comparison to those who “do not”. They are people who “flaunt their privileges, whether economic, professional or educational, in addition to discriminating against those who do not belong to the circle”. It seems to be generally accepted that they are aware of the prevailing system of inequalities in Mexico and regardless of this they believe that all Mexican citizens have the same opportunities.”

  1. A pejorative word or phrase, slur, or derogatory term is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard.

The term became popular on social networks in the late 2010s.
According to Nexos (1), the term emerged on Twitter in 2008. It became popular in 2018 from the publications of the Twitter account “LosWhitexicans”. Alfonso Forssell Méndez, writing for Nexos , states that the expression whitexican alludes to a social order inherited from the colonial caste system , where those who can be identified as European descendants benefit from a swath of economic and social advantages

  1. Nexos is a Mexican magazine about politics, economy, society, science, art and culture. It was founded in 1978 by the historian Enrique Florescano, with the intention of articulating spaces of society, science and literature, in a publication that thought about and accompanied public life and to make social and political criticisms of Mexico.

The use of the word caused controversy during the release of the 2020 Mexican film Nuevo Orden (1), directed by Michel Franco , who maintained that his film depicted “reverse racism” and highlighted the word whitexican as “deeply racist.” It has also been argued that using the word whitexican may be discriminatory or offensive (and there are those that say it is neither discriminatory nor offensive), but it is not racist, because the groups referred to by the term are not embedded in institutionalized relations of subordination, as the pejorative words “prieto,” (2) ” Indio” (3), ” naco” (4) and “gato” (6) with which dark-skinned people are discriminated against and whitexican does not reach the same level of offense as these words do.

  1. Nuevo Orden – “New order” – a Mexican-French dystopian art thriller film written, directed, produced and edited by Michel Franco. The film follows an upper-class couple in Mexico City whose wedding is invaded by rioters (and the participants taken hostage) amid a nationwide working class uprising manipulated by the country’s military and government elite. The Mexican army and government use the disorder caused by the riots to establish a military dictatorship in the country in which, among other things, it kidnaps and loots the upper class and blames and represses the working class, deliberately causing a greater division between the population in order to prolong the dictatorship.
  2. Prieto – nickname for a dark-haired or dark-skinned man, from Old Spanish prieto ‘dark, black’.
  3. Indio – an indian, generally used to refer to people of (indigenous) Native Mexican / South American descent.
  4. Naco – classless, pretentious, obtrusive, the Mexican version of white trash. Bad-mannered and poorly educated people. A naco is usually associated with lower socio-economic classes, but could also sometimes include the nouveau riche. An Australian equivalent might include the term “bogan” (5)
  5. Bogan is an Australian and New Zealand slang for a person whose speech, clothing, attitude and behaviour are considered unrefined or unsophisticated. Depending on the context, the term can be pejorative or self-deprecating.
  6. Gato – “Gato” literally means “cat”, but in this context, it’s used to denote the opposite of “fresa” (7). “Gatos” are lower-class, with a stereotype of being poorly educated
  7. Fresa – Fresa (Spanish for “strawberry”) or Eres Fresa, is a slang, socially used in Mexico and some parts of Latin America to describe a cultural stereotype of superficial youngsters who, by the traditional definition of the word, came from an educated, upper-class family. One of the special tendencies of this group is to closely follow the American culture, if a person is a “Fresa,” she’s an overprivileged, snooty rich girl. She’s “high maintenance.”

The neologism (1) “whitexicans” is used in most cases to refer to light-skinned Mexicans, who make up only 4.7% of the country’s population according to the Ethnicity and Race in Latin America Project (Perla)(2).

  1. In linguistics, a neologism is any relatively recent and isolated term, word, or phrase that nevertheless has achieved popular or institutional recognition, and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered a neologism once it is published in a dictionary.
  2. Módulo de Movilidad Social Intergeneracional (See References) The study was sponsored by Princeton University. Researchers from Brazil, Colombia, the United States, Mexico and Peru participated in the study.
This is what Mexicans look like – according to Netflix

According to some experts this particular “slur” is less widespread than other terms and as such its impact is less, however there are those who feel targeted and report that they are being victims of racism and discrimination for showing their ostentatious lifestyles on social networks. Ahh, Social media, the bane of humanity.

According to the Twitter account Cosas de Whitexicans , the main disseminator of the term, whitexican does not refer to skin color but to the discriminatory attitudes of a privileged sector. That is, it would seek to name an ideological aspect of the Mexican social structure. For the administrator of @TheWhitexicans it is not necessary to have light skin to be one of them, “it is enough to adopt their attitudes, such as believing themselves superior to others, discriminating and showing off their lifestyle.”

It is a term specifically meant to describe a certain type of pretentious Mexican with the undertone that they are aggressively unwilling to empathize with Mexicans-at-large and are true problems responsible for the inequality and poor labour conditions Mexicans perceive themselves to live in.

Laura Lartinez writes on her blog about a fashion idea born in Mexico, and crafted by Mexican designer Anuar Layon (in 2016) which was meant to show the world (or, more specifically the obtuse Trump administration) that Mexico is… well, the shit (i.e. bien chingón.)

I typically know this term in reference to some good mota

Unfortunately not everybody is a “European-educated fashion designer in Mexico”; so there are some Mexicans who are seriously offended, thinking that being “the shit” is something awful and offensive. Take this poor soul below who became the butt of the joke after tweeting the following photo “denouncing” racism at a Mexico City hotel.

Layón explains “This is not just a jacket, it is a statement, an opportunity to remind the world that Mexico is great. That everything made in Mexico is well done. It is a tribute to all those Mexicans around the world who are changing global culture with their beautiful hearts and brilliant minds. It is a way to show that we are many and we are together. Raising the bar, reminding the world that our voice matters. Mexico is the shit is a community, a support system and a movement that inspires love, respect and trust. And the best thing is that you don’t have to be Mexican to be part of it. You just have to love Mexico like we do.”

I hope I haven’t missed anything. Now, back to my whitexican (and take into account that this is happening in Western Australia)

For reference sake here she is

Quite possibly the most Mexican person I have ever seen

Now I do admit I started the conversation poorly (my bad)

Now she did point out she was on the path of righteousness and if I wanted a Mexicans opinion then I should in fact ask her.

I responded poorly and she called into question my intellect.

I did try extend the olive branch of peace by inviting her to meet up, eat tacos and scream at the luchadores at the event but she was not interested and doubled down on her rhetoric of appropriation. Our witty repartee continued at which stage she threatened to hospitalise me.

Luckily I was taking screenshots of our conversation as once I bought up the fact that she had indeed violently threatened me she began to delete her comments. I reassured her that nothing was missed.

No further responses were forthcoming.

Being vegan is super whitexican

So is liking to visit San Miguel de Allende

So according to you everything is whitexican?

No one who really hates whitexicans would say that….

He is a whitexican, Get him.

I freely admit that name calling is not the proper way to step into a conversation (bugbear) and I initially had no idea that this person could in fact be a Mexicana (for Lords sake she’s whiter than I am – and my ancestry is Irish which is pretty fucking white) so her Mexican ancestry driven righteousness was quite the surprise. She does however fit quite nicely into the mould of the Australian bogan.

I’m not sure if I’ve actually worked anything out but welcome to the inside of my head none-the-less.

References

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