Difference between revisions of "MexiMese.com"

the definition

Meximese

noun;

Someone who is half Mexican and half Vietnamese in ethnicity. "That man over there, the one cleaning your pool, isn't he Meximese?"

a little history

In the waning days of my secondary education, I found myself at odds in describing my ethnicity, my race. My college years were approaching and that meant the presence of application upon application. One day, in a fit of blind creativity, I found myself saying the word "Meximese" to a friend. It stuck.

"Meximese" beat out "Vietnican" in the final leg of the race race, and became the other in all my daily activity. From that day on I would only refer to my ethnicity as being Meximese; most people figure it out right away, but even if they don't, I hardly ever offer up an explanation.

For the last decade I've been filling out forms of various officiality with my ethnicity marked, "Other:Meximese." It wasn't until the year 2003 that the word itself almost became "official." During that time there was a show on Public Radio International called The Next BIG Thing, that featured a bi-weekly bit to introduce new words into the New Collegiate Dictionary. These episodes featured interviews with the host, Erin McKeowan, the editor of the New Collegiate Dictionary, and various listeners who were offering up words for the lexicon. After catching the show one day I decided I too had a word worthy of the dictionary. And Erin McKeowan sounded really hot...

So I emailed the show with Meximese as my entry. I defined it as I did above and used the same sentence as my example of use. They liked it. And about two weeks later I did an interview over the phone. Now, I can't really say the interview went well; I had planned on discussing new ideas of ethnicity and even branding identity, but was unfortunately stopped at the gates of "ethnic foods," and what it means to eat meximese. It was maddening.

Needless to say the word wasn't really accepted into the dictionary, but I did get some air time.

meximese around the web

So my name is Vinh Nguyen, I currently live in Portland, OR. But online I've been hoarding meximese as handles, user-names, email addresses, etc. for years. For the most part if you email , I'll be the person behind it. I may never get that mail, but hey. A friend once did some work on self-branding and the secondary "you" that evolves online. In terms of "googability" I'm doing pretty well with meximese. With Vinh Nguyen, however, I'm just one of many.

is it a racial slur?

Well, it was never intended to be, and I don't really understand how it could be if all you're doing is recognizing race, but according to the Racial Slur Database Meximese is, in fact, a racial slur.

From rdsb.org

Slur: Meximese

Represents: Mixed Races

Reasons/Origins: Mexican/Vietnamese

vinh nguyen's contact info

2032 SE Ankeny St.

Portland, OR 97214

External Links

Influence Us

Vinh Nguyen's Comments on MexiMese.com

• Vinh Nguyen (delighted) : I love you so much! Thu Jan 22 19:37:43 UTC 2009
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• Vinh Nguyen (delighted) : I love you so much! Thu Jan 22 19:37:33 UTC 2009
  reply