Where Mexicans are cool and ICE is a joke

Last week, I was in Colorado to give a speech at the University of Denver about my career covering Mexican food in the United States.

- GUSTAVO ARELLANO COLUMNIST

"SOUTH PARK" creators Matt Stone, left, and Trey Parker in L.A. in 2015.

(CHRIS PIZZELLO Invision/Associated Press)

My hosts asked where I wanted to dine the night before my talk.

The choice was obvious, even if it surprised them: Casa Bonita.

It’s one of the most infamous Mexican restaurants in the country, a sprawling complex in a rundown suburban shopping plaza lampooned since its 1974 opening as everything from a Mexican Disneyland to a cultural hate crime for its forever fiesta atmosphere.

The place seemingly closed for good during the pandemic, an aging relic in an era when people didn't need to imagine themselves in Mexico for an evening because Mexicans were now all around them.

But in 2023, "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone reopened the place because the officially designated Lakewood historical landmark was a childhood favorite of theirs. They spent $40 million to return Casa Bonita to its heyday, down to freshly scrubbed fake palm fronds and restored vintage tilework while vowing to make the food long nicknamed "Casa No-Eat-A" actually edible.

I'm more of a "Simpsons" fan, but I've always appreciated "South Park" for consistently arguing throughout its 27-year run that indiscriminately deporting Mexicans is not just morally and economically wrong but foolish.

MTV Documentary Films CASA BONITA reopened in 2023 with backing from "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.