Thank goodness the press has been searching out Conquistador-Americans such as Univision anchorman Jorge Ramos ever since the election to give the rest of us much needed moral advice on immigration. We racist white bread white people must stop resisting the vibrantization of America. We have so much to learn from our superiors, both in ethics and taste.
(Attention Mrs. Morris Dees, I think I've found those interior decorating inspirations you've been looking for.)
I've been trying to point out for a long time that one problem with massive immigration from Mexico is that rich people in Mexico are among the world's worst role models. When the DREAM Act dreamers dream, this is who they dream of becoming. People in Georgetown, Cambridge, and the Upper West Side don't have a clue what they have been getting the country into.
The rich in some some ex-Communist countries may be worse, but Mexican elites are pretty bad. I suspect that rich people in, say, Turkey (a country that is comparable in some ways to Mexico) aren't quite as atrocious, although what do I know.
Perhaps things are getting better in Mexico? These are all pictures of daughters of PRI-connected men taken in 1999, the last year of the PRI monopoly on the presidency. Maybe the rise of the business-oriented PAN brought about a slightly more bourgeois orientation? (Of course, the PRI is now back in power in Mexico.)
By the way, here are pictures of the reputed Putin's Palace built at vast expense for murky purpose in the Crimea. It's got kind of an Enlightened Despot theme going that I would commend to Mexican oligarchs.
(Attention Mrs. Morris Dees, I think I've found those interior decorating inspirations you've been looking for.)
I've been trying to point out for a long time that one problem with massive immigration from Mexico is that rich people in Mexico are among the world's worst role models. When the DREAM Act dreamers dream, this is who they dream of becoming. People in Georgetown, Cambridge, and the Upper West Side don't have a clue what they have been getting the country into.
The rich in some some ex-Communist countries may be worse, but Mexican elites are pretty bad. I suspect that rich people in, say, Turkey (a country that is comparable in some ways to Mexico) aren't quite as atrocious, although what do I know.
Perhaps things are getting better in Mexico? These are all pictures of daughters of PRI-connected men taken in 1999, the last year of the PRI monopoly on the presidency. Maybe the rise of the business-oriented PAN brought about a slightly more bourgeois orientation? (Of course, the PRI is now back in power in Mexico.)
By the way, here are pictures of the reputed Putin's Palace built at vast expense for murky purpose in the Crimea. It's got kind of an Enlightened Despot theme going that I would commend to Mexican oligarchs.
Classy.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2246293/Tennis-player-Caroline-Wozniacki-accused-racist-impersonation-Serena-Williams-stuffing-bra-pants.html
ReplyDeleteI like it.
ReplyDeleteLion mother the next big thing?
ReplyDeleteEver notice that the degree of gaudy ostentation of the rich is directly proportional to the pauperism and breadth of the underclasses within their societies? It seems you don't see this sort of thing in predominantly middle-class societies where the upward strivers are always threatening to crash the ranks of the upper classes.
ReplyDeleteHeather MacDonald in the NR advises us that Hispanics consume large amounts of welfare,have low incomes and pay few taxes and therefore wont vote Republican. This will change,she consoles,as they rise.Oh good! You mean,like the blacks?
ReplyDeleteLatino vibrancy disrupts my feng shui.
ReplyDeleteI only scrolled a bit through the comments, but I didn't see anyone--ANYONE!!!--point out the obvious color scheme.
ReplyDeleteI was trying to remember why that picture looks so familiar, and then it hit me, oh right, there's a huge original print of it about 10 feet across in the mail room at work.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI love the dining room photo that shows the vast sumptuous rug... sheathed in protective plastic.
The Mexican interiors are much more Eurocentric than the home of Mrs. Morris Dees. The Mexican homes want visitors to know that big game hunters, sultans, emperors and aristocrats live here. The Dees home wants everyone to know that ugly, rusted and useless things are actually beautiful and valuable for some intangible reason. Interesting.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we can be lucky and one of these women can get a write-up in Anna Wintour's rag before she gets her ambassadorship.
ReplyDeleteThe photo reminds me of the 1994 film IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU, where one of NYC cop Nicholas Cage's Puerto Rican wife's first actions after they win the lottery is to have a kitschy portrait oil painting of herself.
ReplyDeleteApart from the really irritating tackiness of the "decor" the thing that stands out the most is that the girls' physical appearance and body language most resemble that of common street whores.
ReplyDeleteThe YouTube video interview that's linked in the Slate.com article is well worth watching. The photographer says she felt like what she showed would be happening whether she was there or not. This still from her book that was posted at Amazon is about as far from Third World folk art as it gets:
ReplyDeletehttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61aIxq7oeSL.jpg
In the dining room scene it looks like the floor rug is wrapped in cellophane. Is this how they do it in mexico?
ReplyDeleteI like the plastic film protecting the carpet from mucha tequila in the Cena grand dining room.
ReplyDeleteMuy elegante.
http://ht.ly/fZEJ5
ReplyDeleteRotfl. Onion must close down now.
You can almost smell the noxious perfume.
ReplyDeleteIt's so tacky it makes you nauseous.
ReplyDeleteI've met wealthy Mexicans. There is nothing more arrogant than they. A completely different animal from average Mexicans who tend to be humble people
ReplyDeleteWell Mom, remember my dream of owning a big house on a hill and how I used to wish for a living room with a plaster lion in it from Mexico and how I always wanted a large twenty four seat dining table in a dining room with original oil paintings by Michelangelo and Rembrandt? And remember how I always wanted a rotating bed with pink chiffon and zebra stripes? And remember how I used to chit chat with Dad about always wanting a bathtub shaped like a clam and an office with orange and white stripes? And remember how much I wanted an all red billiard room with a giant stuffed camel and how I wanted a disco room with my own disco dancers and a party room with fancy friends? And remember how much I wanted a big backyard with Grecian statues, s-shaped hedges and three swimming pools?
ReplyDeleteWell, I got that too.
=from Steve Martin's "The Jerk"
How do you think I could get me one of those portraits? I've always wanted a nice portrait of myself.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.care2.com/causes/florida-will-grade-white-and-black-students-on-different-scales.html
ReplyDelete'You can almost smell the noxious perfume.'
ReplyDeleteAnd odious and toxic.
"It's so tacky it makes you nauseous."
ReplyDeleteBut it's honest. It says 'I got money and I'm showing it off.'
It's more dishonest to be 'tastefully' rich. I mean why make gazillions if you're gonna go for the 'modest' style?
It's like if you're gonna kill and slaughter a beast, have a feast. Don't put on fancy manners and fine-dine.
They still got nothing on the 'Russians'.
ReplyDeleteHey, those girls are just enjoying 70yrs of the Mexican PRI party running a knowledge-based economy: ie. how much money you got depended on who you knew.
ReplyDeleteAs a side note I'd add that I found the office tower with the giant, gold "666" numeral on the side more than a little sinister. Those Latin countries do take Freemasonry and the occult pretty seriously. In fact, most of the interiors shown in those photos look like they could be sets from Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" or a place to hold VIP Mexican seances.
The best shot is the one with the life size statue of a black slave girl.
ReplyDeleteWe have much to learn from these people.
I don't know at ISB I attended school with the daughter of the Mexican Ambassador to Belgium and she was pretty classy. Political operators made "good" always have the most ostentatious tastes because status in politics always takes the least sophisticated forms. This is pure conjecture but I'd guess the classier elite in Mexico is drawn to the foreign service and those type agencies which would likely leave you far away from the spoils anyways.
ReplyDeleteIs this even 'Mexican' or bad Hollywoodez?
ReplyDeleteAmbassadorships were often rewarded to Mexican writers like Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz and Carlos Fuentes. In controlling intellectuals, the PRI was bigger on carrots than sticks.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of Woltz mansion in The Godfather.
ReplyDelete"Ambassadorships were often rewarded to Mexican writers like Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz and Carlos Fuentes."
ReplyDeleteGood way to keep them out of the country too.
Exile by other means.
Should 'Star Wars' be called 'Star Diplomacy by other means'?
ReplyDeleteIs Taki tacky?
ReplyDeleteHeartiste is right, power flowing mostly from the middle and upper middle classes pushes a staid and sober lifestyle and conduct among the elite. Think Louis Phillipe, the "Citizen King" or the Danish, Netherlands, Swedish, and Norwegian kings. Even the current royal family in England lives more modestly and more connected to ordinary people than the Obamas -- both royal princes have served in Afghanistan with combat units.
ReplyDeleteWhen power flows from the middle classes, their prejudices, way of life, and general sobriety reign. When power flows from an unchecked elite never worried about anything, you get well decadence. And this stuff.
I, for one, welcome our new leopardskin-clad overlords.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/nyregion/a-quick-descent-for-cecilia-chang-dean-at-st-johns.html
ReplyDeletemy head hurts
In Mexico and much of Latin America and southeast Asia many of the elites are of a different racial/ethnic background than the man in the street. That's not (yet) so true in Europe or North America.
ReplyDeleteI know you've sort of mentioned this point before, but honestly, from (close to) Georgetown, this still looks pretty good for a minority group.
ReplyDeleteAt least Mexicans spend money on their houses and not just on their cars and clothes.
They all look like they received interior design tips from Tony and Gina Montana, right down to having big cats on the premises, gold inlaid everything, and tacky self portraits hanging on the wall.
ReplyDeleteYou need to re-title your post. Light skinned mestizos with bleached hair are not white. Non of them look remotely caucasian.
ReplyDeleteHow sullen and mutant everyone looks.
ReplyDeleteOk, Whiskey but the real bourgeois king was Napoleon III and look how ritzy everything got in France. The hey day of the French bourgeois haute and petit was 1849 to about 1865. I think this theory needs some tinkering, or else France stands as the outlier. Bagehot alot about how the bourgeois just loved Nap III.
ReplyDeleteDerek Brown
"Good Lord - I've heard about this - cat juggling! Stop! Stop! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Good. Father, could there be a God that would let this happen?"
ReplyDeleteYou need to re-title your post. Light skinned mestizos with bleached hair are not white. Non of them look remotely caucasian.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you know what a mestizo looks like. All of them are Caucasian, Southern European generally.
I do, I am one, and live among them. I know a white/ Caucasian swarthy Mediterranean when I see one and I know a castizo, mestizo, mulatto, indio, cholo, or lobo with blonde hair when I see one. I bet the farm on a dna test that proves I'm right. You game?
DeleteHere is a good story about these photos in Houston Press:
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/amonzhb
In his 1989 book, "Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans, "NYT reporter Alan Riding described Mexico as the most corrupt society on earth. It may have been edged out by China since.
I like it way better than our "elites" who generally spend all their money on trying to make it look like they are poor and own nothing.
ReplyDeleteAll I know, is the lion gets the last laugh on El Presidente getting the insightful view on his daughter.
ReplyDelete"By the way, here are pictures of the reputed Putin's Palace built at vast expense for murky purpose in the Crimea."
ReplyDeleteIt's nice and all, but it really needs a big outdoor stairway that jack-booted soldiers can march down, rifles at port-arms, while they clear out the rabble.
Oppen Juarez Style
ReplyDeleteNavin Johnson & Alejandro Sosa --- Love the references...was thinking the same thing. Probably the only reason there weren't any wall sized "Say allo TO my leetle friend!" murals was because Tony was Cuban
ReplyDeleteMaguro -- Me too!
Anonymous -- And then, look at the types we have on the Right. Gingrich and Sheldon Adelson. Libertarians for whom everything is money money.
Dude, you were rolling until this implosion at the end. Don't ever, EVER refer to Gingrich and Adelson as Libertarians! ( Big or small "L") again.
"The rich in some some ex-Communist countries may be worse..."
ReplyDeleteYou're not kidding. A few years ago, while stuck in a hotel room on a business trip, I caught a TV show about the world's (or America's) richest "princesses." The number one "princess" was a Russian oligarch's daughter who spent over $1,000 a day just on clothes and never wore the same outfit twice. That made me realize that if I had lived in Russia ca. 1917 I probably would've supported the Communists, too.
Among billionaires, the immigrants appear to be the most into conspicuous consumption.
Was there supposed to be a link to " pictures of daughters of PRI-connected men"?
ReplyDeleteNever mind, I see that the sentence refers to the first link.
ReplyDeleteIn the 19th century, a lot of American writers got ambassadorships. Hawthorne wrote a campaign biography for Pierce and got sent to Liverpool. Howells wrote one for Lincoln and got sent to Venice. Gore Vidal makes a writer's quest for an ambassadorship a big part of the plot in his book 1876.
ReplyDeleteThe odalisque mural is a shabby homage to the exquisite work of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. (Not Delacroix, whose neoclassicism reflected tastes prevalent during Napoléon's Empire.)
ReplyDeleteThis is presumably what poor and stupid people think rich people's taste is like. Which makes sense since it's Mexico.
ReplyDeleteThe woman in the sheathed plastic dining room doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the grouping. She dressed up for the photo and had it taken in what she thought was her most beautiful room. She poses modestly. She is pretty and has a body for birthing. She is not ashamed of the The Last Supper on the wall behind her. She is no different than any wealthy Catholic European from the Middle Ages. I think I'm in love.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't look like she is wearing shoes - wouldn't want to puncture the cellophane.
Very Goodfellas. Tom Wolfe bemoaned the fact that the American rich did not deport themselves in this style during the '50s & '60s and instead had modernist architects design 'worker housing' (see his book From our house to Bauhaus).
ReplyDeleteI caught a TV show about the world's (or America's) richest "princesses." The number one "princess" was a Russian oligarch's daughter who spent over $1,000 a day just on clothes and never wore the same outfit twice. That made me realize that if I had lived in Russia ca. 1917 I probably would've supported the Communists, too.
ReplyDeleteWould this oligarch be Russian or 'Russian' ie Scots-Irish?
Maybe we can be lucky and one of these women can get a write-up in Anna Wintour's rag before she gets her ambassadorship.
ReplyDeleteAnna Wintour is British, unlikely to get an ambassador gig from the US govt. She would only want London or Paris anyway. Milan not being a capital city.
"The narrative of Mexico as our impoverished and drug cartel–ridden neighbor dominates most news coverage in America, but that’s only one part of a large and diverse country."
ReplyDeletediversity in color or riches?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
A few years ago, while stuck in a hotel room on a business trip, I caught a TV show about the world's (or America's) richest "princesses." The number one "princess" was a Russian oligarch's daughter who spent over $1,000 a day just on clothes and never wore the same outfit twice. That made me realize that if I had lived in Russia ca. 1917 I probably would've supported the Communists, too.
?
You know that Russian oligarchs are not Russian, right? That they are about as Russian as the Russian mafia, right? And the ancestors of the "Russian" oligarchs (and mafia), you know which side they were on in the Russian Revolution, right?
Cause your comment only really makes sense on the assumption that you don't know these things.
I don't know the exact context of the show you were watching, but you know that "princess" when used to refer to a girl who is 1) rich but 2) not actually a member of a royal family often carries a certain connotation, right?
There was a recent article in National Geographic about a community of Roma (i.e. gypsies) in Romania who have struck it rich. They have similar tastes. I think the word I'm looking for is garish.
ReplyDeletehttp://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/09/wealthy-roma/oneill-text
Two good friends of mine are from rich and semi-rich families from Mexico, tho both live in the US now. One guy is Jewish, the other German (but both are "hispanic", doncha know - a word they laugh at).
ReplyDeleteIn MX, they both lived in walled, estates with armed guards. (BTW, you can own all the guns you want in Mexico if you know the right people: I've seen the machine guns, cannon and howitzer that were among the 3,000 guns one guy brought up here years ago).
And just think--they are all eligible for affirmative action in the U.S.!
ReplyDeleteIt's probably a very good thing that most of them are probably too stupid and lazy to dream of graduating from Harvard.
The interiors look like the decor for a nursery of a spoiled child from the gilded age. How is it that even the portraits manage to look tacky? Might be the golden glow around the faces. This makes me appreciate the SWPL posturings of our own elites a little bit more.
ReplyDeleteAlso what is up with the women posing like Harem concubines in the one photo? Was that their idea? Are they sisters? That is pretty weird.
resemble that of common street whores
ReplyDeleteThanks to Craigslist and pre-conviction seizure of johncars, there are no more street whores. Try to find one some time, let alone a blond.
Turkish elites are pretty bad. It's similar situation to Mexico where the elite are the decedents of white people -- Greeks, slaves from the Caucuses and Eastern Europe and white Lebanese and Syrians.
ReplyDeleteBoth groups downplay their racial identity but in private are hyper aware of it and won't mix with dark people.
Gore Vidal makes a writer's quest for an ambassadorship a big part of the plot in his book 1876.
ReplyDeleteHunter S. Thompson was convinced that Frank Mankiewicz - George McGovern's campaign director in 1972 and Bobby Kennedy's press secretary - offered him the ambassadorship of American Samoa. He ordered up a white suit and everything.
What's involved in getting a guest worker visa to teach in Mexico again?
ReplyDeleteThat headless chicken thing in the first picture is pretty cool.
To the guy who said they're all obviously non-white: Come on. Only two of them (not counting the harem group that are too small to tell) would have looked at all out of place at my entirely white high school in the rural Midwest USA where there were no Mexican immigrants within a hundred miles. The first one looks like an Iowa girl I dated briefly, if she'd ever gotten completely drunk and put on her 10-year-old sister's T-shirt to go out slutting. Another one looks a lot like my entirely German/Dutch/Irish cousin.
ReplyDelete"The first one looks like an Iowa girl I dated briefly, if she'd ever gotten completely drunk and put on her 10-year-old sister's T-shirt to go out slutting. Another one looks a lot like my entirely German/Dutch/Irish cousin."
ReplyDeleteRight on a couple of them even look like Mark Ruffalo.
"You need to re-title your post. Light skinned mestizos with bleached hair are not white. Non of them look remotely caucasian."
ReplyDeleteSome of these daughters of the PRI might be very Caucasian, even Nordic, and it might go back a long way. To repeat:
"The Visigoths emerged out of the Gothic groups who entered the Roman Empire in and after 376 and defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The Visigoths invaded Italy under Alaric I and famously sacked Rome in 410 AD, eventually settling in Spain and Portugal, where they founded a powerful Kingdom."
According to the New Mexico DNA Project there are "Hispanics in New Mexico with Visigoth ancestry":
"...the Visigoths (an Eastern Germanic people) conquered Iberia, after they had conquered Rome, and settled there in the year 507 AD. The Visigoths’ ancient homeland was Sweden, which they had left around Christ's time. These three Nordic peoples brought Haplogroup I and sub-haplogroups I1 and I2 into Iberia. 13% of modern day Spaniards share this origin."
At Adrianople the emperor was killed and his body never found. Goth military superiority over Roman legions resulted from their army fighting almost entirely on horseback, probably with stirrups, so they could charge as heavy calvary. Enough to make you wonder just how far back those Paso Fino (conquistador-type) horses go...
That's all pretty tacky, but what's really bogus is stuff like this:
ReplyDeletehttp://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mblf66w2KZ1ra3n9jo1_500.jpg
http://remodelista.com/img/sub/tree-branch-inside-2.jpg
Rich people with sticks in their homes. Oooh, they are so... Zen!! So, subtle, so mininalist, so into the essentiality of the thing.
I mean anyone idiot can pick up a stick outside and put it inside the house.. but rich folks hire interior decorators with degrees from fancy art schools to choose which stick to put in the house.
How, that is bogus.
Gimme a tacky Mexican over a sticky SWPL rich any day.
http://media-cdn3.pinterest.com/upload/156922368235668587_eQGavBiD_c.jpg
ReplyDeleteWow, I'm sooooooo impressed.
So, so cluttery, most of these interiors. Somewhat like the Victorian clutter style of interior decoration with its delight in curiosities and details. But this hideousness lacks Victorian middle-class striving for respectability and sobriety.
ReplyDeleteIn honor of Madame de Pompadour call this the "Après nous, le déluge" style.
"So like I said how about we run a DNA test on people who you think are White Mexicans and see how much amerind is in them becaue you cant tell from looks alone but rather predominant ancestry."
ReplyDeleteTake a close look at this photo at high resolution:
http://www.thefastertimes.com/mexico/files/2009/07/felipe-calderon-and-cabinet2.jpg
Are you trying to get us to believe that these people are geneticially indistinguisable from the day laborers we see standing around in front of Home Depot? (If they all looked like the rightmost military guy you might be on to something.)
But soon enough you probably will know.
Is the "There are caucasians in Mexico but they are limited to fairly recent arrivals such as circa post WW II" thing so important to Mexicans because they fear another race war?
Most of the guys in the photo are mestizo, Calderon in particular. Central Mexican Indians are not very dark so when you mix them with Northern Spaniards you get very light skinned mestizos. The Mexican elites that you speak of. The people of jalisco and sinaloa are representative of this phenotype. Picture boxer Julio ceasar Chavez.
DeleteA mixture of Sephardic Jews, Spanish Moors from Andalusia, and some sub Saharan African, with Indian, results in your typical Brown "mestizo". Think of cheech Marin or Ricardo montalban.
Most of the guys standing around at home depot in SoCal are Amerinds from south Mexico and Guatemala.
As an aside I was in Mexico recently and there were no day laborers waiting around at Home Depot, interesting.
"As an aside I was in Mexico recently and there were no day laborers waiting around at Home Depot, interesting."
ReplyDeleteWell, it could be Subcomandante Marcos's secret plan, but more likely it's proof positive that the Mexican government is a lot smarter than the Californian government... credit where credit is due and all that.
Bill 12/12/12 9:44 AM wrote:
ReplyDeleteYou know that Russian oligarchs are not Russian, right? That they are about as Russian as the Russian mafia, right?
Dmitry Rybolovlev, one of the richest of the Russian oligarchs who recently purchased an $88 million apartment in NYC to shield money from his soon-to-be ex-wife, is not Jewish. Jews are over-represented among the oligarchs, but that is not what you claimed.
The title "princess" does not necessarily connote royalty. High noble, but still non-royal, families in the Holy Roman Empire often carried the title of prince/ss but were not fully sovereign. In the late 19th century, the Kaiser conferred the title of prince on Otto von Bismarck with no rights of sovereignty.
The $88 million
'student pad' and the record Russian oligarch divorce
Turks are whiter than even Cypriots (who are not greeks, they're mainly eteocypriots actually), let alone brown syrian/lebanese arabs who are even darker than cypriots.
ReplyDeleteYou do realize that Turks are genetically closest to Georgians (caucasians), right? Turks are whiter than armenians too, armenians are closer to kurds.
Also, Greeks have more anatolian-type ancestry, than turks have balkan ancestry. 1/3rd of the Greek population literally consists of Pontian refugees.
Also, Turkey's IQ is in the range of Cyprus and Sephardic Jews (why do you think Israel's IQ is so low)?