Last night, burundi and I went to a restaurant and eavesdropped on other tables over beer and fried pickle chips. The table nearest us was talking about the aunt who bit a little girl when she’d had too much to drink, and that was pretty fun.
But most interesting was a nearby table with a big family. Two girls were playing a clapping game whose poem began:
I don’t wanna go to Mexico
no more, more, more
There’s a big fat policeman
at the door, door, door
We couldn’t hear the rest of the poem; they kept messing up halfway through the next line, laughing, and starting over.
What made it so interesting was that the family all appeared to be Mexican, and most of the adults were talking Spanish.
I just found the full rhyme. There’s probably nothing to it, but in the current climate of tension over Mexican immigration, it fascinated me to hear two Mexican kids chanting it.
How do you know they were Mexican? There’s lots of countries they could have been from, and I bet not everybody from all of them loves Mexico any more than all of us do.
Sorry, but I went to high school with a lot of people from all over Central and even South America. They ain’t all Mexicans!
That’s why I said they appeared to be Mexican; I choose my words carefully!
Immigration in our county is primarily from three countries: the Ukraine, Moldovia, and Mexico. They may have been Sumatran, Venezuelan, or Kiwis for all I know, but they appeared to be Mexican.
What is “our country”? When you first commented about the tension over Mexican immigration, I assumed you were in the U.S. But we don’t have that many Ukrainians and Moldovians coming in that I know of.
Since “Moldovia” isn’t a country, I think this is a pretty safe assumption. It’s Moldova now. And there are fewer immigrants from there than many other M countries, like Morocco.
I got rid of my location field around the time that I realized some crazy stalker-types on a crazy stalker board (and if you think you know the board I’m referring to, you know the board I’m referring to) had used information from my posts to track down my work website and link to a picture of me. I figured that was a sign from the powers that be that I should take this Internet anonymity thing more seriously.
Sorry about the typo; it was Moldova, not Moldovia, that I meant.
Anyway, does that not seem odd to folks, hearing Mexican kids recite that rhyme in front of their parents? Poignant, even?
What’s even more bizarre is that I’ve known this rhyme since childhood, since it’s cited from at least 1938 (back when my mother learned it as a child) and it’s about Macy’s. I’m inclined to believe that this is the original version, both because of the early cite, and because there might actually be a big fat policeman at the door of Macy’s, while Mexico doesn’t really have a door. Also, the presumably Yiddish phrasing in the Macy’s version indicates an origin in a New York Jewish neighborhood.
Interesting to see how it’s evolved. I wonder if the little (possibly) Mexican kids didn’t understand the word “Macy’s” and turned it into one with which they were more familiar.
So has anyone else heard either the Macy’s or the Mexico version before?
Yep, Daniel, very poignant, so many Mexican immigrants here in NC, and, gotta say, working hard here at low-income jobs, helping with the big boom here.
I couldn’t find origin of that rhyme—sure you searched too for that, as well.
Perhaps it’s simply the fact that people from Mexico are coming up here to make a better life, like all of us at one-time immigrant families have done in the past, and the kid’s rhyme has origin in what their parents were trying to get away from. The rhyme gives the kids heart to start thier life here. Leaving an oppressive situation.
Really curious about the origin, and hope someone can shed light on it.
Very interesting! I don’t think it was these kids who changed it into Mexico, given the link in the OP, though. It may well be that they don’t understand the jingle at all; it could be that some non-Mexican friends of theirs at school taught them the jingle, thinking, “Hey, Carmen’s from Mexico, and I know a jump-rope rhyme about Mexico!” That is, maybe it was a form of cultural outreach :).
I don’t wanna go to Mexico no, more, more, more
There’s a big, fat policeman at the door, door, door
If he catch you by the collar,
Boy you better holla
I don’t wanna go to Mexico no more, more, more
This was in the late 70’s in fairly rural southern maryland. No significant mexican or jewish population.
I grew up in Georgia and learned it as “he’ll grab you by the collar, make you pay a dollar.” I never really thought about how odd the song was until now.
