#1A

I can't remember the first time I heard the celebrating shouts, "Orale, Orale, Arriba Arriba!," and watch what was supposed to be a Mexican rat run across my T.V. screen. But I do remember sitting on the floor, looking (and adoring) up to the television right in front of me, and my mother standing on my right side, laughing and re-living her childhood with Speedy's wit and "Mexican" charisma. As a child growing up in Mexico, in some ways I could recognize Speedy as a Mexican character, I mean, after all he does talk with a Northern Mexican (with some Chilango sprinkled in there) Spanglish speaker. But, I couldn't stop doubting, why, if he is northern Mexican, is he dressed like a Jarocho (another term for Veracruzan)? I sure have never seen a person in desert-like, arid, cowboy boots, blue jeans, and sombrero vaquero-land north Mexico wearing calzón y camisa de manta and a red handkerchief around the neck.    
Nericcio's article on "the fastest rat in Mexico," or, "the rat who sets the standards for manipulation and falsification of mejicanidad on the planet" (203), illuminated and answered a question I had been roaming around with now for decades. As he explains, the character of Speedy Gonzales and his symbolism has a relationship with the infamous U.S. occupation of the port of Veracruz in 1914. "Green" soldiers arrived at the shores of Veracruz to "go" and seize the Veracruz customhouse (which is also the event that gained Gringos their most distinguishable alias: "Green"+"Go") (206). Being aware of the racially charged, gendered, and classist remarks in the Speedy Gonzales films,  and after reading Nericcio's article I am far more convinced that the autopsy of the rat has determined that the corpse has died of parakinesia, and must not be exhumed.
Finally, and unlike the news articles reporting on the "irony" of Speedy's success and popularity in Cartoon Network Latin America. Only middle-classed Latin Americans have access to Cartoon Network via private cable companies that foster their "worldly," or shall we say, "(White) American" likes and appetites. Thus, it is not ironic that this Latin American population does not find Speedy Gonzales' caricaturing offensive. Speedy does not represent them at all. Speedy is, after all, what Leonard Maltin describes, "a caricature of a Mexican peon" (Nericcio, 207).