On Monday, March 7, the energetic author and journalist Gustavo Arellano flew up for a short trip to San Francisco from Southern California. During his stay, he managed to do a book signing at Alexander Book Co., visit the historical archives at the main library, grab a burrito at La Taquería and even squeeze in time to speak to El Tecolote about what he is up to here in the Mission District.

It’s a lot to accomplish in a short amount of time but it’s something Arellano – best known for his nationally syndicated column “¡Ask A Mexican!” – has a knack for. At age 32 he has so far written two books, served as the managing editor the OC Weekly – Orange County’s alternative newspaper – and lectured at California State University at Fullerton. He is a self-professed “nerd” that stays on the move.

“Even though I do all these things, I’m still busting my ass,” Arellano said. “I never stop.”

In 2004, Arellano started writing “¡Ask A Mexican!” – a “Dear Abby”-like column, appearing locally in the SF Weekly – in which he answers readers’ questions about Mexicans that range from honest cultural misconceptions to those that are unabashedly racist and offensive. But Arellano approaches them all the same way, using wit, satire and facts.

The column was an instant success, moved quickly into national syndication and became the basis of his first book, ¡Ask A Mexican! Arellano has since found himself appearing as a guest on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” and Fox News’ “Hannity.”

Aside from his column, Arellano’s journalism covers the spectrum of goings-on in his native Orange County. Orange County’s population is 34 percent Latino. The county is known for its beautiful beaches, glass mega-churches, planned communities and conservative politicians.

“Someone once asked me who my core community is as a writer, and I said the people I write for are the downtrodden, for the underdog,” he said.

Indeed, one cause that Arellano has been a big supporter of is the DREAM Act, a bill giving undocumented college students and those serving in the U.S. military legal status and a chance for citizenship. Last December, however, it failed to receive the votes necessary to advance to the Senate.

“The DREAM Act is the easiest bill for America to pass,” he said. “It shouldn’t be the only one. I’m all for amnesty and all that good stuff, but the fact that the Republicans don’t want to give amnesty to college students, that just shows how inherently racist they are.”

“I mean these college students are everything the know-nothings say we are not,” said Arellano. “They say that we are not college students. Yes we are. They say we don’t want to learn English. Yeah we do. They say we don’t succeed. Yeah we do. I mean that is what the DREAM Act would do. It would grant amnesty to these students. To me it’s a no-brainer and the only people who wouldn’t vote for it have no brains – and that’s the Republican Party.”

Arellano calls it as he sees it, but that doesn’t mean he will shy away from reporting on the bad deeds of Latinos as well. In a recent investigative piece, he reported a deeply disturbing article about the deadly medical malpractice carried out by a Latino gynecologist who preyed on immigrant women who had no other place to turn.

“I’ve gotten criticism from some people in Orange County, where you have corrupt Latino politicians,” he said. “I go after them. Some say you can’t go after your own kind. No. It’s because they are Latino and corrupt that I am going to go after them – even more so because they should know better. And to join in the corruption or to exploit your own community? How can you not go against those people?”

It’s just these sorts of views that gain Arellano his loyal fans as well as fervent detractors, who leave hateful emails in his inbox, yet he remains undeterred. In fact, Arellano seems to take great pleasure in drawing open the Orange curtain for all to see. His second book, Orange County: A Personal History, which is partly a memoir, is also a historical survey highlighting the county’s less savory past, all told with the humorous style that is the hallmark of his column.

“I love to do historical journalism,” he said. “I love taking these incidents that have happened in the past … that are not in the history books, and telling that history to a modern-day audience.”

And that’s just what he has planned for his upcoming book, Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, to be published in May of 2012 by Scribner.

Though he has written extensively about food for the OC Weekly, writing a book about Mexican food was not originally his idea. His agent suggested it after hearing Arellano’s detailed descriptions of all the amazing food he ate in New York.

While happy about the project, Arellano said he still had other interests outside the Mexican beat.

“But then I started researching and realized that no one has ever done a full-fledged history of Mexican food in the United States, which to me, shocked my mind,” he said.

“Then the reporter in me thought, ‘Here’s a story. Go investigate all these different places, all these different trends and then you will be able to tell a great history.’ And that it has to do with food was almost beside the point.”

Research has taken him all across the U.S. where he met with people and sampled Mexican food from Southern California to unexpected places like the state of Tennessee. It’s not a diet he recommends, but he said he is certainly having a great time doing it.

Besides promoting the Scribner paperback release of Orange County in the Bay Area, Arellano is also researching the famous Mission-style burrito for his new book. Searching through the San Francisco Chronicle’s indexes, he noted there is little serious documentation regarding Mexican food. It’s this lack of historical data, he said, that drives him.

“Even though the Mission-style burrito is an icon, it doesn’t have the allure of Chinatown or the hip-ness of a molecular gastronomy restaurant,” he said. “The sad part is people just say, ‘Oh its just Mexican food. Who cares about Mexican food?’ Which is a damn shame because there is so much history involved in that.”

Arellano, who has visited the Bay Area in the past and counts Taquería El Castillito as a Mission favorite, said he would make more trips for Taco USA.

Arellano interviewed Steve Ells, the founder of Chipotle Mexican Grill, who admits his popular restaurant chain is based on the Mission-style burrito. But when asked which restaurant was his model, Ells declined to answer.

Which restaurant is it? It’s not known but one has to assume that we will learn because Gustavo Arellano is on a mission in the Mission to find out.