Once considered a low-brow garnish 'stache of the 1980s, the cilantro 'stache is now considered pure high-brow, er, high-lip-stache. In the early 1980s Mexican/American tensions were high and cheap meal improvements popular, and the cilantro 'stache fell from the already low standing among the parsley moustache to an even lower, racism-driven standing of immigrant moustaches.
The Americans, long known for foolishness and unreasonable racism, were, not surprisingly, wrong. (Though arguably all racism is unreasonable, the American anti-immigrant racism is especially unreasonable considering the deracinated pasts of its citizens.) After a twenty-five year post-modern, meta-identity battle among the Mexican-Americans, Americans, Mexicans, and sometimes Chicanos, the jury is in: Mexicans aren't just cool, they're haute cool. And so the cilantro 'stache climbed its way up the social ladder out from under the fluorescent lights of the supermarket, southern shopping malls where smoking is still allowed indoors, and used car lots into West Village cafés.... like this one, 'stached at Alexandra on Hudson street.
The tony cilantro moustache can be worn in spring and summer.
No comments:
Post a Comment