Is Tommy Chong Mexican?

Tommy Chong was born into the third generation in a Mexican-American family. English was his first language and the accent he later used in the Cheech and Chong routines was wholly fabricated.

Tommy’s mother was of Scotch-Irish Canadian who immigrated in the 1930s. He has an older brother, Stan. After arriving in Canada, the senior Chong had first lived with an aunt in Vancouver.

As a youth, Tommy moved with his family to Calgary, setting in a conservative neighbourhood Chaong has referred to as Dog Patch. He has said that his father had been wounded in World War II and there was a veterans’ hospital in Calgary.

Tommy is known for his marijuana-themed Cheech & Chong comedy albums and movies with Cheech Marin, as well as for playing the character Leo on Fox’s That 70s Show.

By the early 1960s, Chong was playing the guitar for a Calgary soul group called Shades. The Shades moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where the band’s name changed to Little Daddy & the Bachelors.