But don´t worry. He doesn´t write like one.

The author of "Tex{t}-Mex" is also a border-born Tejano who´s genuinely appalled at what passes for Mexican in the U.S. media.

But he doesn´t get snitty about it, doesn´t scold (too much), keeps his theoretical feet on the decidedly non-theoretical ground, and sees the humor in all of it.

Which sets him apart from the po-mo crowd he runs with, and makes "Tex{t}-Mex" a valuable, sometimes hilarious, maybe even loveable, but surely learned, condemnation of stereotypes.

Nericcio has been pursuing this topic for most of his academic career, so he can offer more examples of offending "texts" and "representations" than we probably care to look at.

He takes us through his gathered evidence with the glee of a 9-year-old showing off his bug collection.

Behold: There´s the shameless greaser movies of early filmdom.

There are the dangerous and not very clean border dwellers, haunting a zone that´s almost always portrayed as forbidden, because that´s where cultures clash.

Then you have the ludicrous "Latino" sitcom caricatures, many of which were created after criticism that "Latinos" were being ignored on commercial television.

There´s the wanton Mexican spitfire and other assorted Latina hotties, pretty much the only kind of non-service-sector young Mexican woman that exists in the U.S. entertainment media.

The accumulated force of this decades-old stereotype is such that even a Mexican actress with a conscious reform agenda (think Salma Hayek) ends up projecting the image she came to change.

Nericcio, by the way, notes that Hayek is well aware of what she´s up against, quoting her: "It´s like you complain about the cliché, and then you get asked these questions so you can be the cliché of the Latina complaining about the cliché."

There´s the male mirror image of the Mexican spitfire, the "fiery" Latin hothead, vaguely threatening and seldom rational.

There´s the the lazy Mexican of the newspaper cartoons, usually with a sombrero and near a cactus.

One mustn´t forget the subservient Marías (they are always named María) in upscale hotel print ads who want you to know how much pride they take in fluffing your pillow or ironing your suit coats.

And of course there´s Speedy González, the uber-maus loved and hated with equal vigor, often by the same person.

Nericcio plays Virgil to our Dante, guiding us through the descending levels of the hell of misrepresentation. His guidance is necessary, because on the surface much of the material doesn´t come off as all that blatant. Some even seems benign.

I imagine Nericcio wrote this book precisely because the problem is complex and subtle. Some false portrayals are so ingrained that the "Mexican" substitutes for the Mexican in the popular consciousness. (Nericcio distinguishes between the word with scare quotes and without; the former refers to the cockeyed representations, the latter to the real thing.)

It´s to Nericcio´s credit that he can probe these things without encouraging a backlash from readers who don´t appreciate being lectured. Here´s a passage that both clarifies his intentions and reveals his amiable prose style:

"Do please know that I am not, or at least not usually, one of those frowning old farts, one of those sanctimonious curmudgeons, who would deny the unwashed masses, or even the ostensibly washed cultural-studies academic masses, the simplest of pleasures.

"But such humor must be checked by a curiosity about the dense, transparent cultural syntax that enables this laughter to spread."

In other words, it´s okay to laugh at Speedy González, but understand what´s behind it.

"Speedy is funny because he and his cohorts are familiar," Nericcio says, referring to the decades of media distortions of Mexicans. "We have seen Mexicans as simple, lazy thieves before; we see them again, we laugh."

Some Chicano activists, Nericcio notes, offer a revisionist interpretation of Speedy as a pro-raza hero "resisting the gringo domination of sly Sylvester and pathetic Daffy Duck." Nericcio likes that hopeful interpretation, but doesn´t buy it.

Speedy González aside, the front-line victims of U.S. media "hallucinations" are clearly Chicanos and Mexicans living in the United States.

But Mexicans in Mexico also suffer from these misrepresentation.

The obvious example is the absurd collection of "solutions" to the migration crisis emanating from U.S. politicians.

Could they possibly be so shortsighted and mean-spirited if they weren´t coming after centuries of Mexicans being portrayed as simple, lazy thieves?

Most would deny they think of Mexicans that way; some probably mean it. But Nericcio´s bug collection speaks for itself.

Think back to the 2006 presidential campaign here, when U.S. reporters referred to Andrés Manuel López Obrador as "fiery" so regularly that his initials could have been FAMLO.

I called out some colleagues on it. But they refused to accept that they were describing a "Mexican" rather than a Mexican. Using stereotypes is like high blood pressure - a silent (truth) killer you don´t know you have until you check for it.

William Nericcio offers a thorough check-up for an endemic but preventible American disease that has harmed a lot of people over the centuries.

Kellyg@prodigy.net.mx