Gringo

For the reggaeton artist, see Gringo (artist).

A Gringa reads the Gringo Gazette in Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico.

The Gringo's restaurant in Stafford, Texas.

Gringo (feminine, gringa) is a Spanish and Portuguese word used in Latin America to generally denote people from the United States, but in some cases it is also used to denote foreign non-native speakers of Spanish (physical appearance i.e. race often plays a role), usually from northern Europe or Canada--especially English-speakers. Anglophones may consider the word pejorative, and dictionaries such as the American Heritage Dictionary classify gringo as "offensive slang," "usually disparaging," and "often disparaging." However, Hispanophones disagree on whether or not gringo is derogatory; it is not considered as such by the authoritative Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española.

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 Mexico, El Salvador and Colombia, the term applies exclusively for U.S. citizens, widely accepted as a colloquial demonym. Depending on the context, it may or may not be pejorative.
• 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 Dominican Republic it also means a non-free range store bought chicken (pollo gringo). In Puerto Rico, the term refers to U.S. citizens in the U.S. mainland.
• 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 Uruguay it is used to refer to citizens of the United States in a non pejorative way.
  • 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 European immigrants. In modern times the term is rarely used at all, but it can be used to refer to small and medium farmers from the Pampas that still use it as a nickname.

Etymology

Folk etymologies

There are many popular but unsupported etymologies for this word, many of which relate it to the United States Army in some way or another.

Mexican-American War

A recurring etymology of gringo states that it originated during the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. This theory holds that Gringo comes from "green coat," used in reference to the American soldiers and the green color of their uniforms. Yet another story, from Mexico, holds that Mexicans with knowledge of the English language used to write "greens go home" on street walls referring to the color of the uniforms of the invading army and subsequently it became common for the rest of the population to yell "green go" whenever U.S. soldiers passed by. These explanations are unlikely, since the U.S. Army did not use green uniforms until the 1940s, but rather blue ones, and after that brown (early 20th century including World War I). Another assertion maintains that one of two songs – either "Green Grow the Lilacs" or "O Green Grow the Rushes" – was popular at the time and that Mexicans heard the invading U.S. troops singing "Green grow..." and contracted this into gringo. However, there is ample evidence that the use of the word predates the Mexican-American War.

Other "green" derivations

In the Dominican Republic it is said that the term was a mispronunciation of the words "green gold," referring to the green color of U.S. currency, as well as the corruption of the exclamation: "green go!" said to have voiced local opposition within the volatile context of both U.S. military interventions to the island. Another interpretation makes a generalized character judgment of U.S. citizens: "they see 'green' (money) and they 'go' (after it)."

"Greek" hypothesis

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." Still, scholars are not in agreement about the correct origin of this word.

Brazil

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 (sometimes German 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. It is also used as "gringa," meaning any other country than Brazil. Sometimes, the word "gringo" is used to say that something is different and nicer than usually: "the food in that restaurant is gringo," meaning that the food is very tasty and worthy.

In English

"Gringo" has been in use in the English language since the 19th century. 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 taco al pastor 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."

See also

• Anglo
• Bolillo
• Farang
• Gabacho
• Gaijin
• Goy
• Güero (disambiguation) (Huero)
• Gweilo
• Old Gringo
• Pakeha
• Pocho
• Use of the word American
• Yankee