(PNS reporting from PORTLAND) Mario Rojas grew up in a tough Chicago barrio, but since he moved here for college he’s gotten soft, according his friends and family. His old street cred is gone, they worry, and he doesn’t resemble the Mario they used to know.
“He’s all into that hipster shit, organic and whatever, qué es eso? Organic ni nada, ponte a trabajar!” said Rojas’ father, Mario Sr., when contacted by PNS.
Eating a gluten-free alfalfa sprout and chevre cheese taco on an organic blue corn tortilla — and then getting tagged in an Instagram photo by his friend Maggie — didn’t helped Mario Jr.’s reputation either. Until the stylized photographic foul-up, Rojas kept his family in the dark by never sharing pictures of his newly-grown beard, clothes, or food preferences.
“Qué es alfalfa? Está comiendo sacate, o qué?” Mario senior asked PNS, referring to whether or not alfalfa counts as actual grass. “What’s he doing in the middle of the afternoon eating at that fancy store anyway? Doesn’t he have a job to go to?! He told me he had a job!”
For his part, Mario Jr. is at a loss for how to please everyone. He said that his rough-and-tumble ways upon arrival in Portland did not sit well with his fellow students, who tried to eat corn tortillas directly out of the package without warming them up, and asked him why he had to put chile on everything — even fruit!
“It’s rough, you know? I feel so torn,” the young man lamented to PNS as he walked late to his job at the campus bookstore. “Who am I, really?”
Although Rojas only has one semester left at Reed College, his family and friends in Chicago worry that they’ve lost him to hipsterdom forever.
“When he comes home, will he still remember how to make that good salsa he used to make? Will he be ashamed to eat chicharrones that weren’t made from free-range pigs? Is he going to bring home organic habaneros or something?” asked Mario Sr. “Qué no chingue!”
When asked about his plans after graduation Rojas confided in PNS that he was anxious to return to his home in Chicago, despite his newfound appreciation for the hipster lifestyle.
“You know, I don’t even like alfalfa, and I’m kind of tired of people telling me what a great culture I come from when these people don’t even know how to make guacamole! I’d give anything for a non-organic, Omega 3-free, chile-slathered taco de lengua right about now!” he said
Whole Foods hipster photo of a guy not featured in this article via Tumblr.