This Just In: Stereotyped Headlines Cause No Stir | Uncovering MexicoWalking around Mexico City last week, I saw a banner headline that made me stop in my tracks.
Zhenli Ye Gon, a suspected pseudephedrine importer who was busted a few months back with more than $200 million stashed in his Mexico City house, had just been arrested in the United States.
The cover of La Prensa, a Mexico City daily, shouted “Aplesado!” That’s just a slightly racist version of Apresado, the Spanish word for captured. The clever editors at La Prensa switched the “r” with an “l,” playing on the stereotype of how Chinese people talk.
It would be like an American newspaper using the headline “Plisoner!” instead of “Prisoner!” or “Rocked Up!” instead of “Locked Up!” above a picture of an Asian person.
It was another reminder that political correctness has yet to take root south of the border.
The headline created nary a stir (although it did provoke lots of chuckles from passersby).
July 31, 2007
This Just In: Stereotyped Headlines Cause No Stir | Uncovering Mexico
This news could confirm Burro Hall's suspicions about Mexican distrust of Koreans (and Asians generally)
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1 comment:
It's true - this story is complex to the point of ridiclousness, but the one thing I've been able to garner from scanning the coverage here is that Zhenli Ye Gon is a big, slanty-eyed Chinaman who, depending on who's doing the caricature, may or may not have bucked teeth. (For the record, he's a naturalized Mexican.)
Regardless of heritage, you gotta like a guy who gets caught with 207 million in cash and argues that $150m of it was a government slush fund. In other words, he really only had $57 million in cash stuffed into the walls of his home. So, like, what's the big deal?
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