http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/portland-burrito-cart-closes-after-owners-are-accused-of-cultural-appropriation_us_5926ef7ee4b062f96a348181?utm_hp_ref=mexico

Commentary by Nacho Mota

Two Portland-based women were forced to shut down their burrito food cart over accusations of cultural appropriation and recipe stealing. …the duo made their own tortillas after taking a trip to Puerto Nuevo, Mexico, in December and obtaining information on the process. The method by which the two non-Hispanic white women obtained the information on tortilla making is questionable. “I picked the brains of every tortilla lady there in the worst broken Spanish ever, and they showed me a little of what they did,” Connelly told the Willamette Week. “They told us the basic ingredients, and we saw them moving and stretching the dough similar to how pizza makers do before rolling it out with rolling pins.”

Making tortillas is a very complex and traditional process. It’s a patented Mexican recipe. There’s only four ingredients, but the ingredients are very special and have to be mixed just right. Any gringo who can make authentic tortillas is a thief. Not just a thief, but a spy. A traitor to the Mexican people. In Mexico it would be punishable by death!

There is absolutely no way a gringo could figure out how to make tortillas on her own. You have to mix the water, lard, flour and salt just right before you roll them out. Mi madre didn’t learn to make tortillas until she was cinco years old. Her abuela taught her one Domingo after church and she has been making the best tortillas ever since.

But Connelly also noted that many of the Mexican women were hesitant to give away their methods ― a fact that didn’t stop them from trying to gather more information. “They wouldn’t tell us too much about technique, but we were peeking into the windows of every kitchen, totally fascinated by how easy they made it look,” Connelly said. “We learned quickly it isn’t quite that easy.”

See. What did I tell you? Those putas are spies, ese. They stole the secret recipe from the Mexican people. Gringos steal everything. They stole Texas, California and Arizona from us, too. We owned that land. It legally belonged to Mexico. Pinche gringos steal everything with their powerful armies. Those two thieving putas think they can go to Mexico and steal our secret recipes just cause they are Americans. Mexicans would never come to America and steal anything. We come here to clean toilets and make babies. That’s it. We don’t steal from nobody, vato.

Once back in Portland, Connelly said she went to the Mexican market to buy ingredients and recreated the tortillas to the best of her ability with trial and error. The two women opened up their food cart on Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard.

They even opened their burrito cart with their stolen recipes on Cesar Chavez Boulevard. The great Mexican-American who was born in Arizona! Why didn’t those putas buy their flour and salt at Wal Mart with the rest of the greedy gringos? Because the salt at the Mexican market is authentic and tastes better. It’s the salt, vato. That’s the difference between a gringo tortilla and a Mexican tortilla. It takes just the right pinch of authentic Mexican salt.

Only Mexican-Americans can shop at the Mexican market and get real salt. Only Mexican-Americans are smart enough to make real Mexican flour tortillas. Only Mexican-Americans can sell burritos on Cesar Chavez Boulevard. White Americans can’t sell burritos on an American street named after a Mexican-American born in Arizona. That’s cultural appropriation.

And I know those two thieving rucas couldn’t fold those burritos like mi madre could. One bite into one of those gringo burritos and salsa would be all over your lap, ese. They probably even bought their sauce from the store. Cause I know they couldn’t figure out how to boil onions, peppers and tomatoes to the right temperature. That’s a Mexican secret recipe, too.

Jamilah King responded to the Willamette Week interview with a piece Friday calling out the women for “stealing recipes from Mexico to start a Portland business.” “The problem, of course, is that it’s unclear whether the Mexican women who handed over their recipes ever got anything in return,” King wrote in the piece that also outlined how others had begun to accuse the women of cultural appropriation. “And now those same recipes are being sold as a delicacy in Portland.”

Jamilah understands cultural appropriation. She’s black, so she knows all too well how racist white people steal everything they have. Jamilah has every right to be pissed off, because her ancestors were kings before they were kidnapped and brought to America to be used as farm equipment. Now she just writes on the internet. But using the internet. Or computers. Or speaking English. Or wearing shoes. Or driving a car. None of that is white cultural appropriation. Because even though white people get credit for inventing almost every modern thing in the world, they stole all those ideas from black people during slavery. So, Jamilah has as much of a right to be pissed off at cultural appropriation as I do about those two white women stealing Mexico’s patented three ingredient tortilla recipe with special Mexican salt.

Writer Jagger Blaec weighed in on the controversy in The Portland Mercury on Monday, saying “Portland has an appropriation problem” and breaking down how the issue is a reflection of a bigger problem within the city. “Several of the most successful businesses in this town have been birthed as a result of curious white people going to a foreign country, or an international venture, and poaching as many trade secrets, customs, recipes as possible, and then coming back to Portland to claim it as their own and score a tidy profit,” Blaec wrote. “Now don’t get me wrong: cultural customs are meant to be shared. However, that’s not what happens in this city.” “Because of Portland’s underlying racism, the people who rightly own these traditions and cultures that exist are already treated poorly,” the writer continues. “These appropriating businesses are erasing and exploiting their already marginalized identities for the purpose of profit and praise.”

There’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Jagger Blaec knows all about white thievery. See, gringos, people know what y’all are doing. You gringos think you’re smart, but people are getting woke to the truth. Truths like Africans invented the internet during slavery. They also invented peanut butter, too. Mexicans invented tequila and tortillas. Asians came up with the egg roll and flip flops. Indians came from the spirit world and taught the white man how to grow corn and smoke peyote. Jews invented usury and porn. Are Jews white people? I’m not sure, but anyway. The only thing the white man invented was slavery and cultural appropriation.