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'Whitexicans' restaurant raises eyebrows in Queens. The owner says the name is satire.
By
Arun Venugopal
Published Oct 20, 2025
Modified Oct 20, 2025
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Arun Venugopal/Gothamist
By
Arun Venugopal
Published Oct 20, 2025
Modified Oct 20, 2025
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The questions, social media outrage and all-around facepalming began weeks before the new Mexican restaurant Whitexicans even opened in Queens.
Some of the hundreds of people who weighed in on Facebook and Reddit wondered if the name was a joke. Others said they were offended. But the restaurant, whose name is a mashup of white and Mexicans, is real, and opened earlier this month on Northern Boulevard in the heart of Jackson Heights.
Cristina Furlong, a community activist and co-founder of the group Make Queens Safer, wished the restaurant well on Facebook but urged the owners to change the name, given heightened immigration enforcement and “people self-deporting.”
“It’s very stressful in America right now to live under the Trump administration and live with such fear that our community is going to be threatened by ICE coming in,” Furlong said in an interview. “It’s just not nice or kind to joke about what some people consider racist terminology.”
The restaurant owners said the name is satirical and meant to poke fun at notions of racial superiority. And some locals have waved off the controversy as a nonissue. Even still, the discord underscores how even a trip for tacos (or sea bass ceviche) can be fraught in the current political climate of heightened anxiety over immigration and race.
According to some authorities, the word “Whitexicans” emerged in recent years and speaks to ongoing tensions within Mexican society between indigenous Mexicans and lighter-skinned Mexicans who wield more privilege.
Co-owner Mateo Gomez Bermudez, an immigrant from Colombia, told Gothamist he is well aware of the criticism and has engaged with some commenters. He said the name was his idea and was a response to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
“Whitexicans, the meaning for us is that everybody belongs here,” Gomez Bermudez said. “We don't care who you are, your sexuality, your gender, your race or anything.”
Gomez Bermudez added he was also mindful that the sign would generate attention.
“When I see people driving, they start taking pictures,” Gomez Bermudez said. “They laugh. Some people ask, why the name? That gives you a little bit of marketing, too.”
Manuela Mesa, a co-owner also from Colombia, said the restaurant's message was entirely positive. She pointed out the "All Humans Are Legal" sign that greets diners entering Whitexicans, saying that it spoke to the values of the establishment and its management. “Whitexicans is love,” Mesa said. “Whitexicans is inclusion.”
Days after the restaurant opened, lunchtime business was slow, but some passersby said they were fine with the name.
“It’s very original,” said Carlos Garcia, a Jackson Heights resident. “I like the name.”
Chris Perez, a 20-year-old who lives in the neighborhood with his family, said his Mexican-born mother had heard of the restaurant and was interested in visiting.
He shrugged upon hearing of the controversy.
“To me, it’s cool,” he said. “I am intrigued.”
Steven Alvarez, a professor at St. John’s University, whose work deals with migration, with a particular focus on Mexican food in New York City, said he’d followed the social media uproar.
Whitexicans, Alvarez explained, typically referred to “ stuck-up people or people from the upper classes” of Mexico.
The term gained currency in the 2010s, and has an entire X account devoted to the issue, with the descriptor, “Almost white... but not quite.”
Whitexican, Alvarez said, “was definitely used as a type of pejorative term, but also has the connotation that a Whitexican is racist.”
He said it was intriguing that the word had traveled from social media “to actual practice,” and from Mexico to Queens, but added that its meaning as a restaurant name was complicated by recent events in the neighborhood.
Alvarez noted that The Queensboro, a popular restaurant located across the street from Whitexicans, established a GoFundMe page earlier this month to support of the family of an employee the owner said had been deported to Mexico. It raised nearly $112,000.
Alvarez said such an act spoke more about that establishment’s values than the virtue Whitexicans claims to celebrate.
“That says more to me about a commitment to the neighborhood and to Mexican people,” Alvarez said. “So if I'm going to support anybody in that block, I think I'm going to go to Queensboro.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated Cristina Furlong’s civic involvement. She is a community activist and co-founder of the group Make Queens Safer.
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Arun Venugopal
Arun Venugopal is a senior reporter for the WNYC and Gothamist Race & Justice Unit who focuses on issues of race and bias in our region. His reporting also tackles the topics of immigration, faith, and inequality. Arun serves as the regular fill-in host of the station's "U.S. of Anxiety" program. Arun was the creator and host of Micropolis, a series about race and identity. He is a contributor to NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He has appeared on PBS Newshour, On the Media and Studio 360, and has been published in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal and Salon. He also frequently serves as an emcee and moderator of panel discussions on race, religion, and identity issues and has been a guest host of NPR's "Fresh Air." He lives with his family in Queens.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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