Por Coraje y Pasión: Anthony Bourdain & Chicano Culture
By Loralei Barro
April 26, 2026
Graphic by Dominic Dayton
Sitting in my crumb-filled mattress at 11:07pm,
The L.A. episode of Parts Unknown moved me
Hollywood traces Mexicanness with a graphite of inferiority,
vulnerability, and insecurity
It paints Mexicanness with a foreign dissonance
The United States could never be otherworldly
But Mexico?
It exists in a diaspora of yellow-grading
crawling to Santa Muerte
and all the methamphetamine an American could desire on a trip to Ciudad de Mexico
As soon as Mexico’s glamour and grit reaches a Hollywood camera- the sweet, deep culture is reduced to a diluted juice. My mind trails off to the bald heads and wife beaters of the supposed Angeleno gangs. The tear drop tattoos, low riders, and every “ese güey” at the end of each sentence. The mean Chicano. The badass, Danny Trejo “Machete”. The Smiley in “Training Day”. The Lalo in “Breaking Bad”. Our men could never be soft. We can never exist in a haze of tenderness. Abrazos y besos. We exist on a set of M60 machine guns and disorder. Our women remain an exotic gaze. Untouched. Out of this world. Merely an image of sexuality and rarely a character. A limp body perfect for accessorizing a king size mattress.
I wish these directors would have peeked through my childhood window
And hear, feel, and touch that world that grazed upon me
Barbacoa falling apart, tenderized for the 9:00am line on Sundays
Accompanied with the usual necessities of Chicharonnes, Aguacate, y Big Red
Mornings were for moist marranitos dipped in hazelnut coffee
How Mexican is L.A?
How Mexican can you be?
How Mexican is Texas?
Is the Alamo an American victory or a Mexican tragedy?
Colibrí del Sur
I can always sense Huitzilopochtli in the back of my mind
Where past Weslaco I can see the eagle
perched upon a cactus
Sun god,
How much blood will suffice?
I feel La Malinche tapping on my shoulder
From the outskirts of Mexica
I am the evil Malinchista who has never crossed the border
Whose Tlaxcalan brothers and sisters dispersed me into a world of Tex-Mex
In the centrality of San Antonio,
I remember walking up the steep stairs to Abuelo
Where he would carve out his nose and indigeneity
Before Tenochtitlan became Ciudad de México
Before Xalisco became Jalisco
I wonder if the God of War would recognize him
In the Spaniard quest of Indigenous obliteration,
who do I pray to?
Is it the Palestinian man whose crucifix watches over my bedroom’s doorway,
Or is it the hummingbird
that I can hear knocking between my floor’s wooden panels?
When my flesh is obliterated
When the obsidian blade glides through my chest
and my heart rolls down the temple
Will a thick, gelatinous plasma feed the God of War,
or will he be dissatisfied by the diluted Mestizo fluid?
“And as much as we think we know and love it, we have barely scratched the surface of what Mexican food really is. It is NOT melted cheese over tortilla chips. It is not simple, or easy. It is not simply “bro food” at halftime. It is in fact, old — older even than the great cuisines of Europe, and often deeply complex, refined, subtle, and sophisticated.” –Anthony Bourdain
The compartmentalization of Mexican culture is a disease. There is a sacrifice that comes with slicing onions, gutting jalapenos of their seeds, and whipping pork lard. A sacrifice that leaves scars from letting the oil pop on the skin. A sacrifice of time– for all the mornings my local taqueria would prepare masa. A sacrifice that the new, fresh leisure of sprinkling a Mexican cheddar blend onto Taco Bell hard shells could never understand. I hope my ancestors forgive my infatuation with Doritos Locos tacos and a side of Nacho Fries. Oh, and can I get a medium Baja Blast please? Thanks. ■
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