Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Que me ves guey

Walking on Olvera Street in Los Angeles, I saw this face and caption on T-shirts at kiosk after kiosk. Guey, or güey, is a Mexican colloquialism with a range of meanings. Que me ves guey (I never saw it with diacritics or question marks) means, more or less, “What are you looking at, dude?” The face on the shirt is that of Don Ramón, a character made famous by Ramón Valdés on the Mexican television comedy El Chavo del Ocho.

The strange thing: for all my searching, I can find nothing to suggest that Que me ves guey was a catchphrase associated with Don Ramón.

[Elaine and I visited Olvera Street with our daughter Rachel in 2012. I have been meaning to make a post about Que me ves guey for some time.]

comments: 2

Unknown said...

Thanks for the back history of the shirt. A couple of years ago I purchased the same version of the shirt shown in pic at a thrift store in San Antonio, TX. It was the Guey that sold me but other than that I really had no answer for my shirt when asked about it (which was every time I wore it). I’m glad you got around to posting!

Michael Leddy said...

Happy to share! Thanks for letting me know this post was helpful.