Lupe's Song: On the Origins of Mexican/Woman-Hating in the United States

Lupe's Song: On the Origins of Mexican/Woman-Hating in the United States

Deena J. González

Curtis Stokes, Theresa Meléndez, Genice Rhodes-Reed, Eds. Race in 21st Century America (East Lansing: Michigan State University, 2001).

I was motivated to begin tracing the origins of hatred against Mexican women in this society when, repelled and curious in the summer of 1992, I learned of a brewing controversy at UCLA. A fraternity manual had been sent to The Daily Bruin, the student newspaper, citing a fraternity initiation ceremony at which the invited had sung “Lupe.” It was not the first instance of racially derived or misogynistic speech at a fraternity, nor would it be the last. I knew that at U.C. Davis, in 1976, a song also entitled “Lupe” had surfaced among the Alpha Gamma Rhos, who today have a lounge in the Alumni Center dedicated to them and who back in the 1970s amplified their initiation ceremonies with the following recitation:

LUPE Twas down in Cunt Valley, where Red Rivers flow

Where cocksuckers flourish, and maiden heads grow.

Twas there I met Lupe, the girl I adore

My hot fucking, cocksucking Mexican whore.

Now Lupe popped her cherry, when she was but eight

Swinging upon the old garden gate,

The cross member broke and the upright slipped in,

And she finished her life in a welter of sin

She’ll fuck you, she’ll suck you, she’ll tickle your nuts,

And if you’re not careful, she’ll suck out your guts.

She’ll wrap her legs round you, till you think you’ll die

I’d rather eat Lupe than sweet cherry pie

Now Lupe’s dead and buried, and lies in her tomb,

While maggots crawl out of her decomposed womb,

The smile on her face, is a sure cry for more,

My hot fucking, cocksucking Mexican whore.