Ask a Mexican.

• Position: List - Gustavo Arellano's Orange County: A Personal History - Brief article

In 2004 the OC Weekly, an alternative paper in Orange County, California, asked its lone Latino staffer, Gustavo Arellano, to answer questions from white people about their puzzling brown brethren. Thus began the scabrous, politically incorrect, and culturally informative "!Ask a Mexican!" column, now syndicated in 37 papers nationwide.

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Arellano, 29, is a fierce defender of his native Orange County, long a hotbed of Republican politics and anti-immigration activism. In September, Scribner released his new book, Orange County: A Personal History. reason asked Arellano to tell us the three biggest misconceptions about the O.C.

1 That Orange County is where all good Republicans go to die. The worst GOPers, in fact, roam here, from Taliban pals (Rep. Dana Rohrabacher) to xenophobic mayors (Costa Mesa's Eric Bever). Dick Nixon was a...