Chicanonautica: Donald Trump, John Wayne, Mexican Food, and the Impending Election Year

by Ernest Hogan

My wife and I were playing hooky. We both had the day off, and we used it to drive out to our usual stamping grounds to investigate the place where she had a job interview. It was a sunny day after a week of atmospheric river-driven gloom. Took a hike, then decided to drive to Wickenburg for lunch.

We headed for the town’s best Mexican restaurant, and the first thing in the door was a shrine to Trump, Kari Lake, and other local politicians of similar leanings. A bit early for 2024, but . . .

It reminded me of the pictures of John Wayne in businesses on the Indian reservations. San Juan de Hollywood assuring the tourists that they were in a safe place.

This would cause some people to turn and run, but we were hungry, and it was a chance to observe these folks on their own turf without the defenses they have up when they stumble into what they see as hostile territory. How would they react to a six-foot tall Aztec leprechaun with a bandido mustache and his blonde wife coming in for some tacos, beans, and rice?

We got professional customer service smiles from the young white women who worked there. The customers were also white—mine was the only “of color” face in the joint—and they were an awful lot of them for a Wednesday afternoon. Wickenburg is a historic cowboy town, not much of a Chicano heritage.

I didn’t hear a word of Spanish while we were there.

Everybody was in a good mood, and they were, for the most part, in Wild West regalia. They looked like retirees from Back East and the Midwest, adapting to their new environment, going “native” in cowboy hats and boots. It was like a big party with so much talking I couldn’t sort out any particular conversation.

They didn’t seem to have gotten the news about how the election deniers were doing in the courts, but with the rift between Trump and Fox, they probably hadn’t been watching much news lately.

They didn’t seem to notice us, which may have been a good thing.

And the food, as usual, was excellent. Their hot salsa had my inner ears tingling immediately.

When I told our server that I never received the iced tea I ordered, she apologized and brought me one in a to-go cup.

As we were paying, a little brown woman wearing a T-shirt with the restaurant’s logo wandered out of the oddly quiet kitchen. 

Ah-ha! As it is with most restaurants in Arizona, they had Mexicans doing the cooking. Funny how folks who want to build the border wall and ship the illegals back to where they came from love their Mexican food.

I haven’t mentioned the name of this place on purpose. I don’t want anybody reading this and going there to start trouble. The world needs all the Mexican restaurants it can get. Our food has a way of bringing people together. 

It may be our best hope.

Besides, for all I know, the owner is what used to be called “of Mexican descent” as well as a life-long Republican, and pays the employees well, maybe even mentors them so they can start their own restaurants.

Also, this was their turf. And it was Arizona, where out in public somebody usually has a gun . . 

UPDATE: After I wrote the above, Trump announced that be would arrested "Tuesday" and encouraged his followers to protest. Tuesday came, there was no arrest, and more counter-protesters than protestors materialized. However, some AI deepfake photos of what the arrest would have looked like went viral, and he raised a lot of money--that would have been better spent on Mexican food--for his campaign. The weirdness has only begun, gente.

Ernest Hogan will be teaching “Papí Sci-Fi’s Ancient Sci-Fi Wisdom” to all the Chicana/o/x writers who enroll for the class at the Palabras del Pueblo Writing Workshop. Sign up, hermana/o/xs. Let’s change the literary world.