These 50-degree days aren’t just melting snowbanks. They’re going to make a new traffic jam disappear, too. The city has yet to decide on the final design of the new Justice Center, but work has already begun on that project, necessitating the closure of 14th Avenue east of Speer so…
Dear Mexican: This November, a trusted employee of mine came out about his status as an illegal immigrant. Our big-box retail conglomerate’s policy clearly spells out the termination of my employment should I fail to report such an offense, but I love the mojado to death. He’s loyal, punctual and…
Within hours of the death of Darrent Williams, an imprompu shrine sprang up where the Denver Bronco had been shot, with fans leaving candles, notes, flowers, teddy bears, an empty can of Bud Light and jerseys — including one tattered orange Bronco shirt accompanied by this note: “This is my…
Dear Mexican: I’m a sixty-year-old Chicano and proud. Why do young Chicanos keep imitating blacks? They dress like blacks, talk like blacks, listen to black music and hang with blacks. Aren’t they proud of their own culture? Why don’t they embrace Hispanic ways and learn about Hispanic history? Say It…
Yesterday afternoon, after making my daily pass by the Darrent Williams shrine, I drove by the old Ritter/O’Brien campaign headquarters at 11th and Bannock. And what did I see but First Lady Jeannie Ritter, loading furniture into the big, green family van. Not supervising — although she had a few…
Dear Mexican: Why do non-Mexicans consider it a compliment when they tell Mexicans they don’t look Mexican? I am 100 percent Mexican (5’7″, with black hair, brown eyes and olive skin) and ever since I left my home town of El Paso, I’ve been subjected to this backhanded compliment. No…
Another day, another Denver story in the national news. But at least the news was good early this morning — as opposed to yesterday’s prediction of another snowstorm snarling the country’s travel, and Sunday’s report of an avalanche at Berthoud Pass. As ABC wrapped up its news reports just before…
“It’s not exactly a secret that Bill Ritter’s people and John Hickenlooper’s people aren’t always filled with love toward one another. But maybe it truly was a coincidence that the inaugural 21-gun salute was fired toward city hall.” That’s the word on the front page — the front page! —…
On Monday, January 15, the Denver Election Commission will start collecting mail-in ballots for the special, one-item election that Denver City Council approved on December 26. But before Denver voters can start turning in those ballots that could make Denver the 63rd out of 64 Colorado counties with an elected…
The unofficial Darrent Williams shrine at 11th and Speer not only survived the most recent snowstorm, but it’s grown. Mourners who marched from the Shelter, the club at 1037 Broadway where Williams was partying on New Year’s Eve, to the site of the shooting left more flowers, more cards, more…
Bad day for Denver on the national news. On Fox & Friends this morning, the five-minute hourly update included a piece on the Darrent Williams slaying, a segment on Denver’s third big blizzard (including a live report from the National Western Stock Show on the status of all those frozen…
A few hours after news broke that Darrent Williams had been shot dead, people started leaving tributes to the Bronco at the scene of the shooting — hats, signs, cards, flowers. Keith Schrum, associate curator of manuscripts at the Colorado Historical Society, decided to take a look at the unofficial…
At seven last Friday morning, as I shoveled my walk — again — I watched a city trash truck coming down a nearby street, pause so that the driver could contemplate the right-hand turn that would have led to my rutted, iced-in block — and then continue on in the…
Dear Mexican: How did the patron saint of México get a name derived from Arabic? El Moro Judío Dear Jewish Moor: You’re referring to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the brown-skinned apparition of the Virgin Mary whom tradition says appeared before the Aztec peasant Juan Diego in December 1531, just outside…
December turned Denver into a giant snow globe, sealed off and insulated from the rest of the world — but with a whole lotta shaking going on. Especially at the corner of 11th and Speer Boulevard, where Bronco Darrent Williams was shot dead early New Year’s Day. He was in…
Dear Readers: The Mexican is inside a trunk, trying to sneak back into the United States after the holiday. In the meantime, here are some golden oldies: Dear Mexican: A friend of mine calls Mexicans “wabs,” but being a menso, he doesn’t even know what it means — except that…
Throw the bums out. The grumbling started even before Denver City Council convened its December 2 hearing on the election debacle. Snowflakes were falling; where were those snow plows? Thanks to the Parade of Lights, which had kicked off the night before, meters were bagged and streets blocked off all…
Dear Mexican: I’m a Spanish-language student struggling with tenses and the gender of nouns. The other day, some friends and I were discussing street slang, and the word verga (penis) came up (no pun intended). It occurred to me that the definitive symbol of masculinity ends in the feminine -a…
Republicans are courting Dick Wadhams to return to Colorado and run the state party. The political operative’s got the time. While in the past Wadhams has taken jobs with the candidates he’s helped propel into office (Governor Bill Owens, Senator Wayne Allard), no such opportunities will arise from his latest…
In a recent column mourning the deaths of some of Denver’s great dives — Duffy’s Shamrock, the Bamboo Hut (see second item here), I lamented the end of the Micky Manor, now turned into the 12th Man. It’s a Bronco bar, of course — of which Denver already had too…
Dear Mexican: It seems that whenever Chicano professors want to show off their mexicanidad, they wear a guayabera. In fact, I saw a picture of you in the Los Angeles Times donning the shirt, along with Dickies pants and Converse All Stars. How trite and bourgeois! You go to a…
Dear Mexican: I was flipping through television when I noticed the Spanish-language channel showing a man in a red suit with yellow pants, antennae on his head and a heart with the letters “CH” on his chest. It appeared to be a sitcom, and all the characters related to the…
