Banned from TV

ok. it was the local paper but you get the drift.

Newspapers will always hold a special place in my heart…not too far from its special place in the cultural birdcage.

You gotta love them but you gotta wonder where they go next.

While circulation and readership is down across the board, there remains at least one section worthy of close examination— no, not the obituaries you morbid SOB— The Opinion Section. This is where professional polemicists do their dirty work. And I like it.

That’s why I threw my hat in the ring and started offering Op-Eds to the Southern California News Group, publisher of nearly a dozen print rags across southern California, including my hometown paper, The San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

I’ve been on a bit of a roll this year, publishing pieces on homegrown history, immigration policy, humiliation and proselytizing. Add this to my earlier pieces on the rising cost of youth sports, the benefits of boxing, why Dads should me more like Moms and the value of origin stories and you can count me as one of the more prolific public shit talkers.

None of this would be possible without the editor I work with, a 30+ year veteran of the newsroom, who has been nothing short of supportive and effusive with praise. When I submitted my most recent op ed on folly of In N Out CEO talking shit about California, he sent me a glowing response:

Carlos, it's brilliant, and so timely! Add another two paragraphs in the morning and it works great for print.

Done. Quickly.

You see, I like going to the corner store and picking up the paper. I made a video showing as much.

So you can imagine my surprise, then, when I went down to the store and failed to find my article!

I hit up my editor and that’s when he told me this:

…late Friday an editor up the food chain from me nixed your column.

Alrighty then. I must’ve struck a chord. Which chord?

You’re about to find out.

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JUST PUT THE FRIES IN THE BAG, SIS

Carlos Aguilar

I grew up in Bassett, California, just down the street from the original In-N-Out. We called it Store One. It was just a shack with a vaunted two lane drive-thru system, a red-and-white sign visible from the 10 FWY and a line that spilled onto Francisquito Blvd.

Tucked around the corner sat the fabled In-N-Out mansion, which was really just a warehouse with a fancy lobby. And In N Out University, the only school in the area to offer me a full ride scholarship, called students far, hungry and wide.

Just last night, our family of four ate at our favorite location, Store Two, on Grand Ave in Covina. Clean restaurant. Friendly staff. Economical meal. Now that’s what a hamburger (joint) is all about.

That’s why it hits differently when the company’s CEO, Lynsi Snyder, makes noise about leaving California. She says the state has become “unlivable” for families. Taxes, crime and woke politics. The usual bullet points on the Fox News bingo card. Let’s be real: she isn’t just talking about the cost of living. She’s wealthy. She’s talking about who’s living here.

When folks complain about California being “too hard” or “too far gone,” they’re really grumbling about the cultural dynamics of a Mexican-American majority-minority state. A place where Spanish is heard at every stoplight. Where taco trucks outnumber Teslas. Where immigrants make the cities move and the suburbs cook. So when the burger heiress winks at her conservative base with talk of “family values” and “a better life out of state,” she’s flashing the bat signal for the God, Guns and Grievance crowd.

I say: adios, amiga. Please. Pack up your biblically blessed paper cups and move the board meetings to Tennessee. Leave the burgers behind. We’ll keep those. We’ll keep the animal-style fries and the car club meet ups. We’ll keep the cooks who grill in English and Spanish.

But consider taking your cultic practices with you.

Brethren, In N Out is not a faith based institution. I’m sorry but what does the Kingdom of Heaven have to do with the Kingdom of lettuce, onion and cheese.

Don’t answer that.

Just put the fries in the bag, as the kids say.

And for the record, In-N-Out’s aesthetic (white walls, neon palm trees and cherry-red hot rods) is Eastside car club nostalgia. That whole vibe? Lowriders and cruisers? That’s Mexican-American culture, too. The same people you think make the state “too complicated” are the ones who made your brand cool in the first place.

Here’s a stat for Lynsi and her followers: yes, some Californians are leaving. But plenty more are arriving. According to 2024 census estimates, California lost about 75,000 people net—but gained over half a million new arrivals from abroad. And guess what? A huge number of them are Latino. That’s the state. That’s who’s eating your double double whole grilled onion mustard fried chopped chiles hold the tomato, please. .

Lynsi, you’re not escaping dysfunction, you’re escaping diversity.

I’m not mad that a billionaire CEO wants to leave. I’m mad she wants to leave while throwing shade on the very people that built her brand and fortune. You don’t get to profit off our culture and then pretend it’s the reason you’re fleeing.

And where exactly can her ilk run to escape the culture that plagues them? Tennessee? Between 2010 and 2020, over 80% of Tennessee’s population growth came from people of color. The Hispanic population alone jumped 55%, outpacing every other group. So if your concern is suffering through mariachi music blaring from a gray Altima in the supermarket parking lot, you didn’t move far enough. Consider Alaska.

But understand what you’re walking away from: not just overtime regulations or rush hour traffic but a state that shaped your legacy. And a community, like mine, that still remembers when the only moral quandary about In-N-Out was deciding whether to complain about the fries while shoving them down your mouth or to suffer in silence.