Gringo Guide: How To Introduce Your Mexican Boyfriend To Your Mexican Family

Spoiler Alert: Don’t.

My adoptive sister is white but she’ll tell you she’s Mexican. It’s a strange phenomenon with a certain social circle in the town where we grew up and to her credit, she is a quarter, but you would never know. Everything she knows about being Mexican she knows from my mother and also to her credit, she’s a lot closer at mastering madre’s homemade tortillas than I am.

Fittingly, she has always liked Mexican men. Another phenomenon that started at adoleces when most of her friends growing up where Mexican girls, white girls who thought they were Mexican, and the Mexican men who gave them attention. I was more conceited and early in life found my in to be with a circle of white kids who mostly lived in a more wealthy side of town but like me got good grades, participated in sports (okay, okay I was a cheerleader), and also shared my love of straight gangster rap. They would often refer to my working middle class neighborhood as the ghetto, but would drop me off there blaring “The Chronic” from the car.

For the most part, I’ve never liked the men my sister brought home Mexican or not. It’s possible I’m a bit over protective, but more than once she’s showed up to my parent’s house with some guy’s small child which I believed played a part in my mother’s prejudice against us dating Mexican. Later in life when I would for the first time announce to my family that I had been dating a Mexican man who was college educated, as career driven as I, owned his home and came from a wealthy family, she asked me if his family made their money in construction. Then she asked me if I ever talk to an Italian congressman’s son I dated in college. When I retold this story to my then boyfriend’s white couple friends, their reaction was priceless. Turns out white people who aren’t from my hometown are terrified at laughing at Mexican culture in front of Mexicans.

So during a visit home over the summer, I have a gathering of several friends I haven’t seen in some time and it occurs to me I should introduce my sister to a long time friend of mine who is very her type, except better (in my opinion). And yes, he’s Mexican. To my surprise they hit it off instantly and by fall she tells me they are moving in together. I would be worried except this behavior has pretty much become what my circle of friends has dubbed, “pulling a Tiffany,” and I’m just relieved that at least this time it’s someone I know and approve of. I actually couldn’t be happier.

By the holidays Tiff has been dying to introduce him to my parents even though I warn her to proceed with caution. We decide instead of a weekend at the ranch they will meet my mother and I for lunch the day after Christmas. My mother uses the opportunity during the ride up to ask me about my Mexican she has been hearing about for some time now to which I tell her that I’m glad we’re test driving this with Tiffany’s first.

Then I get a text from my sister: BTW FOREWARN MOM THAT TOMMY DOESN’T SPEAK SPANISH.

Oh my God, I didn’t even know that. “Um, Tiffany says to forewarn you that Tommy doesn’t speak Spanish.”

“What?!” my mother exclaims.

“Well to be fair, neither does [retracted].”

“What?!” now she’s really excitable. “The one from Nogales?!”

“Oh my God, he’s not from Nogales Mom, his family is. I mean my family lives in Mexico and I don’t …”

“What kind of Mexicans are you girls dating?!” she interrupts. Oh Jesus Christ, wait til she hears the other guy I’ve been hanging out with lately with is Jewish.

I text my sister back: UH, THAT DIDN’T GO OVER WELL. I’M SURE IT’LL BLOW OVER BY THE TIME WE GET THERE.

Don’t misjudge my mother. She is one of the sweetest mom’s moms you’ll ever meet, but she is from a very different world where men are laborers and protectors, women are mothers and wives, and Mexicans speak Spanish. I’m undecided on whether or not “forewarning” her was the right strategy until they meet and my mother instantly breaks off with Tommy as we all walk into the restaurant.

“So Dee tells me you don’t speak Spanish,” is what she decides to open with. My sister and I just look at each other with wide eyes. I decide my mother will never meet any Mexican boyfriend of mine.

Sitting down at this Italian restaurant which is a favorite of my sister’s, Tiffany and I each decide to order mojitos. My mother who rarely turns down the opportunity for a margarita declines because she has to drive back. I am relieved. Then she proceeds to run down the scale of traditional Mexican foods, most of which my sister and I won’t eat, to survey Tommy on whether or not 1) he eats them and 2) if his mother makes it. Being a woman, I’ve had mothers and sisters of boyfriends past run similar surveys on me, but how any of this information sizes up Tommy as husbandly material is beyond me.

Other than the continued Mexicano evaluation, the meal is relatively painless and I hit a ride back to Phoenix with the couple. Tommy gets off seemingly easier than many previous boyfriends of ours and we bid adieu to Mom.

“Your mom is really sweet,” Tommy says.

“Why is it whenever she’s around another Mexican all she can talk about is being Mexican?” I comment to my sister. “At least she went fairy easy on him.”

“Yeah,” Tiffany says, “Wait til you meet Dad.”

Yeah, count me out of that one. xo