I didn’t grow up eating spicy foods. Sure, there were spicy foods — whole jalapeños in vinegar, homemade salsa, and roasting chiles smoking out the house — at home, but I didn’t eat them. Those were for my parents and grandparents. Mom would often make two batches of the same food, one for the kids and one for the adults. The only time I tasted jalapeño or other chile was when it accidentally got mixed in to our foods. I didn’t like it. In fact, jalapeños were our punishment for cursing.

Then I grew up. I spent more time in Mexico. I started cooking my own food and realizing I liked the addition of a little chile.

I’m not about to swallow whole habañeros, but I won’t ignore the escabeche (tiny bowl of carrots, onions pickled in jalapeño vinegar) on my table at Mexican restaurants. And of course, like every other Chicana, I’ll add Tapatío to my tacos and burritos.

Tapatío bottle costume
In the past, I’ve met people who loooove Tapatío and add it to everything. If you’re one of those people, why not show your love for Halloween?

Of course, if you’re a bigger fan of another table hot sauce like Cholula or Sriracha, it would be pretty easy to switch out the logos. You could also make this a couples or group costume. It’d be much spicier (sorry) than those ketchup and mustard or salt and pepper costumes.

How to do it:
1. Get a large piece of cardboard or some other sturdy poster board and roll up in a large cylinder. Make sure you can fit in this cylinder. Either paint the cardboard red or cover your bottle with red butcher paper.

2. Attach a smaller cylinder up top with tape, staple gun or whatever else you have lying around in your crafts drawer.

3. Hand draw (or blow up a copy) of the Tapatío label so that it’s large enough to cover most of the bottle.

4. With an X-Acto knife, cut out a circle for your face. You could also cut out a larger hole and wear a large sombrero through the whole. Get creative!

5. Get some green contacts. You need to have the ojos Tapatíos, right?

6. If you show up at King Taco at midnight on Halloween weekend, be ready to pose for photos.

Thanks to Alan for taking this photo and letting me use it.

Since stores have been selling Halloween candy, decorations and costumes for a few weeks now, I figured it was time to bring back the Halloween on a budget series. I usually start this in October, but more time to get things together and make your costume can’t hurt, right?

First up: highway border crossers sign.

If you’ve driven on any of the freeways north of the California/Mexico border, you’ve noticed the sign. I was a kid when I first saw it on a trip to Tijuana to visit the grandparents. Not long after I saw the sign, I saw a small group of immigrants running across the freeway. Later, I remember my aunt talking about an accident. In suggesting this as a costume, I don’t mean to make light of the struggle of those who cross the border on foot or those who have lost their lives in the process.

For this costume, you can go with the original sign, a silhouette of a man, woman and little girl rushing across the freeway or make a sociopolitical statement about manifest destiny with the image re-imagined by a Chicano artist of a pilgrim family running across the freeway.

How to do it:

1. Buy bright yellow poster board and black butcher paper or poster board
2. Buy letter stickers or make your own spelling CAUTION
3. If needed, cut poster board in rectangular shape
4. Draw your silhouette on the black paper or poster board and cut out with an x-acto knife or scissors. Glue/tape with your choice of adhesive.
5. Make a border for the sign with leftover black paper or black tape.
6. Cut out holes over the faces of the father, mother and child
7. Wear all-black and go trick-or-treating and be ready to defend yourself if someone starts talking smack about immigrants

If you have a group of three people, you can do this with just a yellow poster board with CAUTION and a black border around the sign. Your group, dressed all in black, can pose in front of it and make it somewhat of a performance art piece/costume.

Hope you all had a fun Halloween.

Politics and current events always make for creative Halloween costumes. In 2004, I remember seeing a Florida with hanging chads. I’m sure there will be plenty of folks representing the recession or health care reform.

That said, if I was going to be a political figure, I’d be Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

• Black judge’s robe* (can be substituted with a graduation or choir robe)
• White high-neck blouse and skirt/pants below the robe (or a red/blue power suit)
• Gavel
• Copy of the US Constitution
• Wavy dark hair
• Bonus: for those of you who think you’re wise Latinas, a “wise” tshirt below the robe and a baby doll cut in half (see: King Solomon)

Unless you find a tiny robe, this costume doesn’t satisfy the theme for most adult women’s costumes. Oh well.

*While doing research for this, I found a “sexy” judge’s robe. Um. Really?

A few years ago, I created a costume inspired by a Morrissey song. I was a “Hairdresser on Fire.” It was way too conceptual — and warm — to wear on the crowded dance floor in a club. Still, it was a simple, cheap, and original costume.

Morrissey and the Smiths songs are rife with titles that could easily be converted to something visual.

Some ideas:

Hairdresser on fire
- Smock with scissors, combs and other stylists’ tools
- Decorate the smock with fake flames (I used red, orange and yellow felt), my smock also had a made up hair salon
- Wear whatever you want under the smock

Vicar in a tutu
- Dress like a member of the clergy (all black with the collar)
- Tutu

The boy with the thorn in his side
- Boyish clothing
- Thorn made out of construction paper, styrofoam cone, or whatever else that works

Death of a disco dancer
- Shiny clothing
- Platforms
- Something to indicate a death (e.g., fake gunshot wound, zombie-ish makeup)

First of the gang to die
- Cholo or chola costume
- See “death of a disco dancer” above

Pretty girls make graves
- Dress girly (cute dress, cute hair, cute shows… you get the picture)
- Fake gravestones (hold the gravestone with you)

Bonus: Halloween with Morrissey (Cheekyboy remix)

Dear Target,

What’s up with this Illegal Alien costume?

I don’t get why a corporation that boasts about giving back to the community (can’t say I didn’t thoroughly enjoy the ¡Bienvenido Dudamel! concert a few weeks ago) and celebrates Nuestra Gente would sell such a despicable costume. (I know not all undocumented immigrants are Latino, but we do make up a plurality of the population.)

Is it to make a buck? Is that enough to alienate (no pun intended) undocumented immigrants, their allies and our dollars? Couldn’t you make a buck by not selling “humorous costumes” that demean and make light of the situation faced by many undocumented immigrants and advance dehumanizing language?

Is it humorous that thousands die trying to cross the US/Mexico border? Between 1998-2004 1,954 migrants died on the perilous journey north source). Since 2004, the Arizona Star Border Death Database has recorded 1,193 deaths at the border.

Funny, no?

What about exploitation from shady employers? How about the rise in anti-Latino hate crimes?

¡Chistoso!

Last, what about undocumented youth who face an educational glass ceiling as college is out of reach without financial aid and high non-resident fees?

I expected something different from Target. I was wooed by those free days at museums, free concerts and all that red (my favorite color). I thought Target wouldn’t be like other vendors who sell racist costumes playing on tired stereotypes and caricatures.

Qué lástima.

Sincerely,

Disgruntled Target Shopper

P.S. Anyone who pays $39.99 (plus shipping and tax) for such a costume is not only racist, but also stupid.

Updated: Target also sells a tequila pop n’ dude and Mexican costumes for adults and kids. Nopal not included. Guess they are showing their appreciation for mi gente.

Cross posted at LA Eastside

In a supposedly post-racial society*, are costumes like this okay?

I think not. Still racist.

More racist costumes (you can even find some for kids!).

*In case it isn’t clear, I don’t think we’re in a post-racial society.

I love October. It’s got baseball playoffs, the World Series, loved ones’ birthdays, and at the end we dress up and celebrate Halloween.

In case you don’t know, I’ve always loved Halloween. I’m pretty sure it’s genetic, as my parents dressed up in some crazy/silly get-ups in their youth. (There’s a photo floating around of my dad in drag. No, I won’t post it.)

As a kid, my mom would ask what I wanted to be. I’d pick something and she’d proceed to make the costume. (Mom also used her sewing talents to make some of our clothes.)

One year, I embraced gender duality and told my mom I wanted to be the bride/groom I’d seen in Big Top Pee Wee. She proceeded to cut up the dress I wore as a flower girl in my tía Nellie’s wedding and at my First Communion (we were into recycling before it was trendy). She got an old suit that belonged to my cousin Danny and pieced together my greatest costume ever.

I won first prize for that costume.

October is also the time when I post the series on low-cost, DIY and culturally-relevant costumes. You can find costume ideas from 2008 and 2007 here. I’ll be back with more for 2009.

Nobody understood my costume last year. I tried to go for abstract and learned my lesson. I was a “Hairdresser on Fire,” yes as in the Morrissey song.

Prior to Halloween, my friends asked, “how are you going to do that?”

It wasn’t tough, but it was time consuming. I had my mom make me a smock and I sewed flames all over the smock (which was more like a coat). I also named the hair salon something punny and stuffed my pockets with cheap hairbrushes and combs. The costume was a dud. Nobody got it, even hardcore Morrissey and Smiths fans. Plus, it was too warm to wear while dancing in a crowded club.

Right after Halloween ’07, I chose Carmen Sandiego. I grew up playing the computer game, watching the PBS game show, humming along to Rockapella, and watching the cartoon. I’ve always loved geography, maps and trivia so Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? was the perfect game. I knew the costume would be recognizable and easy to put together, save for finding a red hat.

Here’s how to dress up as Carmen Sandiego

• Red trench coat (I bought mine right before Christmas on sale)
• Red fedora, a nice hat would’ve cost too much so I just found a $10 hat on an online costume shop
• Black gloves (purchased in a Santa Cruz hat shop)
• Black shirt, pants and shoes (found in my own closet, but I might borrow boots from my mom)
• Long hair (oh well, short will have to do this year) and red lipstick (I’ll borrow some from my sister)

DB is dressing up as a detective on the chase.

Now all I have to do is steal some monuments or priceless art and jet off to some unknown corner of the world.

Happy Halloween!

PS I would’ve posted this earlier, but I didn’t want anyone to steal my costume idea! Carmen is the one who does the stealing!

I rarely ask for advice on costumes. I’m pretty good at figuring it out myself. Still, I heard “you should go as Ugly Betty!” from 5 or 6 different people. I don’t get why. My hair is not long and unruly. My eyebrows are pretty normal. I don’t wear braces or glasses. I usually match and avoid clashing patterns. All that really doesn’t matter. I didn’t want to dress up as Betty — even though she’s my favorite Chicana on network TV and is a pocha just like me — because she’s just too popular. If you can buy a kit for your costume, chances are you’ll show up at a party and find your twin. One costume site I found was sold out of the Betty kit. That’s too much for me. I don’t want competition.

I’m not going to write up Betty like I’ve done with other costumes. A simple Google search will yield some pretty good how-tos or you could just watch the show (here and here).

To avoid looking like every other Betty, I’d recommend making it a group costume featuring one of Betty’s two love triangles.

Betty, Walter and Henry:

• Betty: see links above or watch the show
• Walter: jeans, button-down shirt and a blue big-box store vest
• Henry: geeky glasses, sweater vest and slacks

Betty, Walter and Henry – Halloween version:

• Betty: purple butterfly costume plus standard Betty hair, eyebrows and accessories (see The Lying, the Watch, and the Wardrobe)
• Walter: net for catching butterflies, safari hat, fishing vest, khaki shorts and matching shirt
• Henry: Superman t-shirt under conservative grey suit

Betty, Henry and Gio:

• Betty: see links above or watch the show
• Henry: geeky glasses, sweater vest and slacks
• Gio: red apron and bright colored flyers with “Gio’s Sandwiches” and a pickle with a smiley face (see: Something Wicked this Way Comes)

If you’re in a true love triangle, the group costume could be awkward. It might be better to just get some guy friends together. Or drink lots of alcohol (responsibly, of course).