The Gringo's restaurant in Stafford, Texas.
is a
Spanish word used in
Mexico and other parts of
Latin America, generally to denote people from the
United States. The term can be applied to any person who is known, or assumed to be from the United States regardless of race, or it can denote a strong association or assimilation into American society and culture. The term in its functional use is mostly encountered by Americans traveling abroad to Spanish speaking countries. The
American Heritage Dictionary classifies
gringo as "offensive slang," "usually disparaging," and "often disparaging."
Hispanophones disagree on whether the term is derogatory.
Recorded evidence suggests it was used in Spain long before it crossed the
Atlantic to denote foreign, non-native
speakers of Spanish.
[, Royal Spanish Academy, 22nd. edition] Although it has various anecdotal etymologies, and various connotative or interpretive meanings, its source appears to be "
griego", the Spanish word for "a
Greek person" that serves as a colloquial shorthand for any foreign (non-Spanish) person.
Etymology
Spain
The word was in use in Spain in early
19th century. Its entry in a 1817 French-Spanish dictionary, written by Antonio de Capmany,
[Hebreu at Nuevo diccionario francés-español, Antonio de Capmany, Imprenta de Sancha, Madrid, 1817] includes:
According to Rawson, it appears in the Diccionario Castellano in 1787. That dictionary says that it was used in
Malaga to refer to anyone who spoke Spanish badly, and in
Madrid in reference to the
Irish. Furthermore, according to the
Catalan etymologist
Joan Coromines,
gringo is derived from
griego (Spanish for "
Greek"), the
archetypal term for an unintelligible language (a usage found also in the Shakespearean "it was Greek to me" and its derivative "It's all Greek to me"). From referring simply to language, it was extended to people speaking foreign tongues and to their physical features — similar to the development of the ancient Greek word βάρβαρος (
bárbaros), "
barbarian."
[Griego at Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, Vol. III, Joan Corominas, José A. Pascual, Editorial Gredos, Madrid, 1989, ISBN 84-249-1365-5] Still, scholars are not in agreement about the correct origin of this word.
Latin America
The many popular
unsupported etymologies that exist for the use of this term in Latin America include:
United States Army
One story that is widely repeated among
Mexican-Americans as well as throughout the
Southwest United States was that during the
Mexican-American War the Mexicans who knew little
English referred to the Americans' green uniforms and would shout, "Green go!", meaning "Leave our country." But, the U.S. military in the Mexican-American War did not wear the color green. They were still wearing blue at this time. During W.W.I the uniforms were tan. Not until W.W.II did the U.S. army begin to wear green.
Irish-American Dissidents
When the
Mexican-American War began, hundreds of Irish-Americans fought on the side of Mexico. Sent by the U.S. government initially to fight against Mexico, they came to doubt why they were fighting a Catholic country. Resentful over mistreatment from their generally Anglo-Protestant officers, these Irish (and other immigrants) deserted the U.S. Army and joined forces with Mexico. Led by Captain John Riley of
County Galway, they called themselves
St. Patrick's Battalion (in Spanish,
San Patricios). Green was the color of the Irish, and the soldiers sang "Green Grow the Rushes Oh!" (based on a
Robert Burns poem) or their version of an earlier Scottish tune "Green Grows the Laurel", which they called "Green Grow the Lilacs". This latter tells the story of an Irish soldier who'd fallen in love with a Mexican lass. When the songs became popular with American cowboys, those listening across the border in Mexico couldn't hear the words clearly, only the repeated "Green Grow". Over time this changed into the term "Gringo" (
green go), later used to refer to people from the United States.
Railroad construction in Chile
When William Wheelwright built the railroad from Caldera to Copiapo in Chile, the workers were trained to stop on red lights and to go on green lights. But they did not understand English, so William would repeatedly say:
"Green - Go
Green - Go
Green - Go"
And therefore all they remembered was "Gringo" and began calling him that.
Brazil & Portugal
In Brazil, the meaning and use of gringo differs significantly from the Spanish-speaking Latin American countries.
Etymologically, the word is documented as not native to the European Portuguese language and is actually borrowed from Spanish since the 19th century at least. Thus the Greek reference is reinforced there as the word "grego" for Greek in Portuguese (without the "i") would not have given "gringo." Also in Brazilian or even Portuguese popular culture, someone unintelligible is traditionally said to speak Greek (or, much more recently, Chinese).
This is also reflected in that the word usage is not naturally widespread and only generally in regions exposed to tourism like
Rio de Janeiro. There, the word means basically any foreigner, North American, European or even Latin American, though generally applying more to any English-speaking person and not necessarily based on race or skin color but rather on attitude and clothing. The word for fair skinned and blond people would be rather "Alemão" (i.e., German).
In
São Paulo, the word is used to refer to any foreigner at all. The feminine form is "gringa". This usage is evident on the fact that
MTV Brazil's foreign-programming daily track, during which mostly
American and
British MTV reality shows are broadcast, is named "
MTV Gringa". MTV "Station" is a feminine term in Portuguese.
In
Rio Grande do Sul, the word is used to refer to any people from the countryside, specially the ones from
Caxias do Sul, where most of the population is light skinned.
In
Portugal the word is seldom used and so is "Ianque" (Portuguese spelling of
Yank). It is never used in a formal context. It specifically describes someone from the
USA (as does "Ianque"), and is not related to any particular physical or racial features.
In English
"Gringo" has been in use in the
English language since the
19th century.
[ From the Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved November 28, 2008.] According to the
Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use of the term in an English source is in
John W. Audubon's
Western Journal of 1849;
Audubon recalls that he and his associates were derided and called "Gringoes" while passing through the town of
Cerro Gordo,
Veracruz. The earliest recorded use of the word in an English-language context is in an 1871 article from the
Albuquerque, New Mexico newspaper
The Republican Review, which describes an assault by three
Mexican American men on an evidently Anglo-American woman, whom they called "a
gringo bitch."
Other uses
In
Mexican cuisine, a
gringa is a flour tortilla with
al pastor meat with cheese, heated on the
comal and then served with a
salsa de chile (chile sauce).
In the 1950s, the blue fifty
Mexican peso bill was called an
ojo de gringa ("gringa's eye").
Gringolandia
The word
Gringolandia (Gringoland) is a mock, single-word name for the
United States of America.
Gringolandia derives from the compounding of the words "gringo" and "-landia" (land of) into this term. This composition was inspired by the word Disneyland (from the name Disney and the word land), which in Spanish was translated as Disneylandia. Walt Disney's movies and cartoons have always been popular in Mexico, and they inspired the mock name "Gringolandia."
The term is also used by natives of
Quito,
Ecuador to describe a sector of the city called
La Mariscal. This neighborhood is the entertainment and tourism hub of Quito, and subsequently attracts many foreigners. Hotels, restaurants, bars, and shops in La Mariscal cater to tourists, students, expats, and business travellers coming from many parts of the world, particularly from English-speaking countries, and so it is jokingly nicknamed
Gringolandia.
Meanings
- The Anglosphere: Latino migrants to the U.S. occasionally use the term as a more derogatory synonym of Anglo. however, it is also said the term may apply to anyone who lives in the U.S. regardless of race.
- In Central America, the word is not pejorative. In Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama the term refers to U.S. citizens (regardless of race).
- In the countries of South America where this term is used, the word is not pejorative. In some countries it may be used to refer to any foreigner who does not speak Spanish as a native language, or in Brazil, someone who does not speak Portuguese as a native language, but in other countries it is used just or especially to refer to U.S. citizens; it may also be used to describe a blond or brunette white native person with soft facial features and light colored eyes. For instance, it is a popular nickname.
- *In Peru the word gringo is used all over the country among the white and non white population. It is used to refer to white people, particularly those with fairer features. It is not pejorative.
- *In Ecuador the word gringo can be used to refer to foreigners from any country, not only the United States, though the likelihood of being described as a gringo increases the closer one's physical appearance is to that of a stereotypical Northern European.
- *In Argentina it was used in the past to refer to all European immigrants. In modern times the term is mostly applied to refer to Anglo people, including people from the US or the UK. It can also be used to refer to small and medium farmers from the Pampas, often of European descent, that still use it as a nickname, denoting their whitish complexion.
- *In Chile the word gringo refers both to non-Spanish speaking foreigners, especially of Northern European descent, and also to United States citizens of any origin.
See also
