Pinguín Classics

The recent controversy over the remarks made by Vicente Fox to George Bush on the subject of Mexican migrants to the United States and their position in U.S. society caused some friction in U.S.-Mexico relations. Now the Mexican post office has released a series of commemorative postage stamps which have aroused a storm of protest north of the border. The stamps feature a black Mexican cartoon character called Memín Pinguín. The BBC reports on the story and comments:

Anti-racism campaigners and White House officials had condemned the stamps, based on the Memin Pinguin cartoon, as the character has large eyes and lips.

Mr Fox said he did not understand the hostile reaction in the US, and urged Americans to read the original comics.

Many Mexicans appeared to back Mr Fox, queuing for hours to buy the stamps.

In an interview with the Associated Press news agency, Mr Fox said the Memin Pinguin character is "an image in a comic I have known since infancy".

"It is cherished here in Mexico," the president added.

The BBC also notes that

In Mexico City, hundreds flocked to post offices to try and get their own copies of the stamps.

Mr Fox urged Americans to read the Memin Pinguin comics.

Many took exception to comments by White House spokesman Scott McClellan that the stamps "have no place in today's world".

"We are not racists. We are not offending anyone. He is a very sweet character," shopper Teresa Montalvo said.

"People's colour is all the same to us, we are all brothers."

Businessman Cesar Alonso Alvarado accused the US of discriminating against Mexico, a country without a significant black community and little understanding of political correctness.

"They're the racists. They're worse than we are, but they just want to belittle us, like always," he said.

But there was criticism of the Mr Fox in Mexico's newspapers

"The capacity of Fox's government for provoking international scandals through predictable or avoidable details is incredible," La Jornada wrote.

At México desde fuera, Rodolfo has written a fascinating study of Memin Pinguin, accompanied by illustrations from the cartoon series. Among other things, he says:

I grew up with him and he was great. Memín (something like Little Bill) is by all means a caricature, so its physical traits are exaggerated, but here is the catch: he was extremely smart, he always was the hero, although her mother will punish him when he misbehaved, or when he missed classes. He was a sort of leader of a group like the Little Rascals. Moreover, he had a deep sense of justice and respect. For sure, he had a strong accent in his Spanish. He was not a bright student, otherwise he would be an angel, so he was frequently grounded by his mother and the professors at his school. He was very poor, so he worked selling newspapers in the streets. As far as I remember he had no dad, or at least I do not remember him, that was sad.

The character has its roots or popular Mexican plays in which an "outsider" (either an Indian, a Black, or a female) will beat the crap out of an old greedy male or an abusive white, rich , obnoxious female abusing her mother who -of course- was forced to work in low pay informal jobs. He was a true popular hero.

Moreover, you gotta realize that the "category" race is not universal, so even if Memín will be unacceptable here in the post- 1960s U.S. in Mexico, back in the 1950s and 1960s things were very different. Memín belongs to a generation of cartoons that are very specific to that old Mexico. There was one called Hermelinda Linda who, despite the name (Beautiful Hermelinda) was an ugly witch. Very fat, with pimples in the nose, living is a house full of cats and all sorts of crap. There was other called La Familia Burrón (the last name is kind of close to Donkey, so it is kind of funny). The family, however, was very nice; the dad was a hardworking man, and the mother a housemaker, but the characters are ugly as hell. Long, long legs, small torsos, and very long arms.

I can understand why here the character looks awful, but in Mexico, 30 or 40 years ago, the perception of race was quite different. Finally, I think that the Mexican government, hardly my favorite, is following the same trend that put Mickey Mouse on the US Postal Service stamps long ago.

Read it all. Though you need some Spanish, as only part of Rodolfo's post is in English.