Mr. Monda

I tend to do things backwards. I’d like to think it’s because I’m special, but it’s probably because I’m just not all that smart. In the early ‘90s, when everyone else was coming North across the Border to share in America’s blossoming economy, it occurred to me to head South of the Border to make my fortune. Fifteen years later, I woke up one day and found myself deeply in debt, the father of two Mexican children, and on the verge of full-scale divorce. Oh, well. There’s always next time.

I did get lucky, though, when somebody came along and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse for my coffee company, Mondo Caffè. I sold-out, paid off my debts, handed over my shorts to the ex, and came back to America to make my fortune. Things were looking great: the market was booming, real estate was worth more than ever, the unemployment rate was basically nonexistent. I invested in stocks and my brother’s contracting business just in time for the first economic depression in almost a century.

Leer más: Pocho al Revés

You’d never know it by looking at me, but I’m one-third Latino.

Not by blood or anything, but rather because I lived in Latin America for one third of my life. I’ve had people tell me things like, “Mateo, eres más mexicano que el huitlacoche” or “Mateo, bailas como un Colombiano,” but at the end of the day, there’s no escaping it: I’m white.

For some reason, “Ice Ice Baby” comes to mind every time I switch into Latino mode. I realize that a white man who is into Hip Hop has absolutely nothing to do with a white man who is into Salsa—other than cross-cultural confusion—but whether I like it or not, Vanilla Ice is on the soundtrack. Of course, I change tunes as soon as I realize it’s playing, the sound of a stylus zipping across the surface of vinyl as something a little more Latino cuts in—

Leer más: Whitino