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Not everyone gets or appreciates Gustavo Arellano's satirical and increasingly popular ˇAsk a Mexican! column in OC Weekly. Now reading it can be dangerous to a person's livelihood, at least in rural Oregon. Arellano this week recounts the story of a 62-year-old handyman who showed a recent column to a colleague at Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport. The next day, Robert Diefenbach was suspended without pay for five days. No appeal or response was allowed. The change: sharing a column that "depicts people of Mexican origin, women, Irish, and the Catholic religion in a discriminatory and derogatory way."
Illustration: Bob Aul for OC Weekly