A topic not much addressed in MEXICAN SLANG 101 is political slang. There's a lot of it, of course, but this list is of some terms that shed some insight into the way Mexican politics tends to work.

Burro, of course, if the Mexican term for "stupid", "dunce", etc. Therefore the perfect graft-on to form the self-explanatory terms, Burrocracia or Burrocrata.

WIth in that framework, a cute term is aviador. The "aviators" are people working on government sinecures, getting paid for positions on arts counsels, studies, and institutes that don't require them do much work because they are political appointees and protected. So they just drop in twice a month like airplanes...to pick up their pay checks.

A more serious term is also illustrative. Mapache is a racoon and it's probably the animals mask and nocturnal prowling that makes the word apply to election stealers, ballot box stealers and stuffers, double-registered voters, and other activities designed to corrupt the election process and ensure that the "ins" stay in and the "outs" stay out.

A recent reaction to this (since the Pan presidential victory in 2000 put the first crack in the power of the PRI party) is the emergence of cazamapaches, or "mapache hunters". These are frequently groups of idealistic young volunteers who man the polling stations, watching out for fraud and looking for faces they know to be goons of the incumbents.

It's a civic activity that can be harmful, even fatal at times. Which brings up another loaded word: madrina. It means "godmother", a feminine twist on padrino, which means "godfather" literally and in the movie mafia sense.

But it doesn't apply to women, as such. It refers to people who draw a government salary but "moonlight" as criminals. This is very pervasive. Most "hit men" in Mexico are state or Federal police. The narcotics business is run out of the government, which is the protector, investor, and main dividend-casher. So the cop-as-thug is a fixture on the politics/crime landscape: enforcement by madrinas.

The term naco is defined in MEXICAN SLANG 101 as a “nerd, hick, or low class oaf”, but it’s a lot harder to nail down that that. So let’s try.

There is an element of “redneck” or “urban hill-billy” in the term. A naco (as defined and delineated in the book El Naco Y Como Criticarlo”) is a guy from the country who didn’t stay in the country. Notice on this T-shirt design, the word is illustrated by a bus pulling into the city.


The naco has crude country manners, likes loud “ranchero” music played by guys with satin suits and big necklaces, Mexican wrestling and street tacos. He’s an Indian, for sure. And definitely, as shown in this decal, the type of guy to drive an old “vocho” and piss in the street.

So it isn’t just musica naca that people are bitching about, it’s a culture. And underclass. And it’s become very poltical. Yeah, naco is politics these days. The appeal of leftist crybaby Andres Lopez Obrador was definitely to the naco culture. They didn’t mind camping out in the Zocalo to protest his squeaker election loss: they’re used to it. The political appeal to this people is at the heart of much of the class and race distinction in Mexico. That's what the "pinche naco" is satirizing.

The natural enemy of the naco is the fresa, the light-skinned, educated, sophisticated twerp who uses English words and votes for guys who went to Harvard. The fresas are the “socs”, the “preppies”, the yuppies of Mexico. This clash is depicted in a popular YouTube video series. Naco y Fresa. President Felipe Calderon, a Harvard slarpie who beat Lopez Obrador, was recently quoted: “I can’t drive my BMW downtown…the nacos are rebelling against us.

But a weird reaction has set in recently. A new buzzword/grafitti is ”Naco es Chido”, recalling the 80’s US catchphrase, “It’s Hip to be Square”
There is undoubtedly a lot of kitchy camp behind this movement, which has spawned discos and albums like “Nacoteque”…as with the US “Lounge” fad…but it could also be seen as a bridging of the cultural difference, and might even be ushering in new politics. Or not. But one phrase is unlikely to die out quickly: you hear a lot of people saying, ”Es naco criticar lo naco."