Lost in Translation

We went to Los Comales, our favorite Oakland taqueria, for lunch. As usual, the place was packed with a line out the door. We were lucky to find a seat. Bob ordered the special, a ground beef burrito, and I ordered my usual, a junior burrito with all the trimmings.

It's a small place with the requisite photos of Frida Kahlo and Mexican revolutionaries up on the walls and the usual line of hard-working Mexican women behind the counter, serving up burritos non-stop with a steady practiced hand. Like many family-run ethnic restaurants, the only expensive item in the joint is the flat-screen TV that hangs from the ceiling by the window.

I usually try to ignore its presence, but this time I watched, since I was facing it. A Mexican sitcom was on. The sound was turned off and there were no subtitles, but I could tell it was a comedy because the characters were doing clownish things. The main character was a young woman dressed up to look homely with heavy-framed glasses and prominent braces on her teeth. She was obviously meant to be a figure of fun.

"That's odd," I said to Bob. "She looks exactly like Ugly Betty."

"Who's that?"

"A Mexican character on a popular American sitcom. She works with a bunch of glamorous cut-throat assholes who underestimate her intelligence, but she always ends up solving the problem, whatever it is. At first, I thought the woman up on the screen was Ugly Betty, but she's not. Now I'm wondering, did Mexican TV copy that character because she's so popular -- which is really weird when you think about it --or was the American Ugly Betty ripped off from a Mexican show?"

"Maybe it is Ugly Betty," Bob suggested.

"No, it's a different woman. This show is Mexican."

"How can you tell? There's no sound. Maybe it's in English."

"I can tell by reading the actors' lips. They're obviously speaking Spanish."

"Could be an American show made in Spanish for Mexican-American audiences."

"Or a Spanish program broadcast for a Mexican audience," I mused.

Meanwhile, the surreal pantomine went on.