Now that President Obama has taken it upon himself to allow millions of illegal immigrants from south of the border to camp here indefinitely it probably would be a good idea to brush up on your Spanish. I used to have three brothers from Guadalajara work seasonally for me. I didn’t become fluent in español but learned enough to work them.

Cowboy vernacular is liberally sprinkled with corruptions of Spanish words and in the Southwest there is a lot of Spanglish spoken on the ranches where you need to know that mas vacas means bring more cattle, otro lado – brand goes on the other side, cerrado la puerta – close the gate, and so on. Cowboy words converted from Spanish include hackamore – jáquima, lariat – la reata, McCarty – mecate, buckaroo – vaquero. Texas would like to take credit for cowboy culture and horsemanship but it all came from the californio vaquero who got it from Mexico and they from Spain and Portugal and here we are 400 years later.

It’s not uncommon in California to hire on border crossers, and the more recent their arrival from Mexico, the better. The problem with this is their inglés es muy pobre so you better be able to talk Mexican.

One of the cowboys I used to work with in California was mostly Irish but part old California Spanish. His mother was a Castro descended from the first governor of California when Monterey was the capital. I often thought that the Spanish/Irish cross was marginal. Fiery personality, bad temper and low tolerance to alcohol. Joe and I would often speak only Spanish while working in order to become more fluent. We both liked the language, the music and a lot of the culture of Mexico.

Over the years we got to the point where we could carry on conversations with each other if we knew what we were talking about, but conversing with real vaqueros we sometimes had misunderstandings. Joe thought his Spanish was a lot better than it truly was. At a fall branding one of the help was a Mexican. We broke for lunch and headed inside. Joe, practicing his español, commented to Pancho that it looked like it might get wet outside. Pancho took offense as his translation was, “Wetbacks stay outside.”

Most Arizona cowboys can speak Spanish like a Mexican. While staying with Sherrick Grantham in Congress, Ariz., my friend Jim and I expanded our vocabulary quite a bit. One of the new words we picked up was a little derogatory. Mandilón literally translates as apron boy, meaning you are bossed around by your wife. After we got home I overheard Jim calling Joe “mandilón José.” Joe was unfamiliar with the term and asked the meaning. Jim answered that it meant man in charge or boss.

Joe, like most cowboys has an ego the size of a Clydesdale, and was pleased with the new label. The nickname stuck, to Joe’s delight and our amusement, and for a long time everyone referred to Joe as “mandilón José.” The fun ended one day when Joe told a couple of Mexican cowboys to call him “mandilón.” They started laughing and aroused suspicion in Joe. He asked why they laughed at the name and unfortunately they gave him the correct translation.

Locally: Last week I was talking to local rancher Mark Dawson. The conversation turned to what a good grass year we had here in the county. Mark complained that it was so good he had hell all summer trying to keep his cows on the neighbor’s CRP

Hasta la vista y adios amigos. Better get used to it.

Open Range columnist Barrie Qualle is a working cowboy in Wallowa County.