I’ve been to plenty of Mexican restaurants staffed entirely by lationos that served white people Mexican.
Even specifying what you’d like doesn’t seem to help lol. You just have to accept it.
I grew up in New Mexico, we call the New Mexican food here Mexican. I moved to PA and later Maryland, I was very surprised at the difference in food and what was called Mexican. After I while I realized there was a huge difference between New Mexican, everything uses locally grown chile, similar to Anaheim chile. Versus the other stuff which uses a lot of poblano, and other types of chile.
And then there was the places that served white peoples Mexican food. Maryland crab enchilada was the worst I think.
If you are interested in exploring the multiplicity of Mexican foods, you should watch Pati Jinich. Her shows are travelogue/cooking, but her background is in poli-sci so it’s always as much about the culture as the food:
Sounds interesting, found her on youtube too:
Fellow New Mexican checking in; our food always incorporates a hatch chile sauce of one (or both) colors, and hot damn is it tasty! Having chile with every meal is probably the thing I miss about NM the most (after my parents, ofc). New Mexican food is its own category, separate from Mexican food.
