Have a Drink on Me

More reasons to import them by the baker's million:

In 2005, there were 37 alcohol-related crashes caused by Hispanic drivers for every 10,000 Hispanics in the state, according to the UNC Highway Safety Research Center. That is more than three times the rate of alcohol-related crashes among non-Hispanics.

Bobby Dunn, who counsels Spanish-speaking DWI convicts in Johnston and Wilson counties, said his clients are often young men far from home with money in their pockets for the first time. Many were too poor to have cars in Mexico, so they have little experience behind the wheel.

That'll make me feel muy better next time I hear of a drunken Mexican running down a young mother pushing a baby stroller.

They also see drinking as a way of showing their manhood.

"The magic number is 12," Dunn said, or "un doce" in Spanish. "If you can drink 12 beers, you're a man."

Yep, because it takes a real man to pickle himself.

Many Hispanics have not grown up with anti-drunken-driving messages, and it will take time for the ideas to take hold.

Yes, I'm sure the "messages" will sink right into the besotted brains of those who were alcoholics before they clambered out of the Rio Grande. If you're getting blotto every other night, chances are the signals won't reach you through all the haze. All the sympathetic articles in the world can't hide this truth.