Why Do We Get Called "Gringos"? 🇲🇽🇪🇸🇨🇴🇨🇴🇬🇹🇦🇷🇧🇷🇨🇷
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- Опубликовано: 23 авг 2024
- #mexico #colombia #brasil #brazil #argentina #nicaragua #guatemala
Pretty much the entire Spanish speaking world uses the term #gringo but what does it really mean? Americans think that it is all about them. And many thing that it comes from Green Grow the Lilacs sung by American soldiers during the Mexican American War. But is that accurate? What is the history of this world, is it offensive or pejorative, or are we misunderstanding how it is being used? How should you take it when you hear it?
3 July 2024
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Thank you for ALL the great information.
BTW… love, love to see your pups playing in background.
Thanks for another informative video, you gringo.
I was in nicaragua 6 weeks ago
Was there 20 days Never heard green go ...they always called me chele 😊
Imho about 15% of nicas could pass for white
The thing i liked most about Nicaragua,the people super nice and no woke culture and no racism
Oh they call each other chele too, all the time. They aren't using it as a reference to you being foreign. It's just a polite way to reference someone who is light skinned in any context. I only know one person who is always called Chele and he's Nicaraguan. I get called it all the time, but no one person calls me it all the time. I get called One Dollar more often.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog I know
That's why i mentioned 15% of them are fair skinned
I enjoyed my stay but too expensive for me gasoline food hotel way overpriced
Also can't even mail letters
Went to post office and no regular mail service to outside world
They said can receive from other countries but not send only ems at 24 dollars !
Btw
In mexico they say huero
I guess white huevos :-)
Thanks reply
Greetings from samarkand uzbekistan
The more specific nationality reference I discovered in the pacific was Amboy (American boy). Military here this in many ports. While not a true derogatory itself, I does actually point to a nationality vs ethnicity.
Hi Scott, I wanted to ask you if you've been to Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast. I'm sure that's a hidden treasure because we as Nicaraguan don't even think of traveling there at all because tourism hasn't developed its fullest potential over there. How much have you inquired about that area in Nicaragua?
Eventually I'll make it out there. But I think "it's a hidden gem" is probably untrue. I work in Belize and I'm told by people who work in both that they are essentially identical, you can barely tell them apart visually. Nicaraguans, I suspect, don't travel there because it's not that interesting. If there was a huge tourism infrastructure, more people would go, but the impression is that there is already more than is needed for who wants to go. Online loads of people ask about it, convinced that they want to see it, because they think that the word "Caribbean" makes it magical. And don't get me wrong, I'm excited to get out there and check it out. But all the research says the same thing: there's not a lot of beaches, there isn't a lot to see or do, it lacks the infrastructure for a reason. Could it develop more? I'm sure. But what would that mean?
Interesting Theory of the use of the word but the theory I was thought in college by Dr Sheppard Philips at FIU originated during the Mexican -American War . American soldiers wore green uniforms so the Mexicans wanted them to leave and the shouted GREEN GO
Yeah, that really highlights the problems I have with universities and their low academic standards. That a professor could think that something so goofy was valid AND was willing to teach something so obviously fake and a prank is just ridiculous. Why was he teaching something he knew literally nothing about?
We all know that John Whayne created that slang! LOL
i have heard of gringo meaning 2 things 1. army or marines in their green uniforms being told to go.. and 2. take your money and go.
Yeah, "greens... go" is very weird as the term is far older than the English mixing and far older than the marines or their uniforms. And extra weird that they'd say it in English in that way. I think people were trying for a long time to come up with some way to tie a term that can't be about Americans to Americans and they started getting some weird theories. As the term is older than Mexico OR the USA... not likely a source. And definitely safe to say no one has ever used it that way later, lol.
Hey Scott, I am the person who objected to the use of gringo because I felt it was a pejorative term. My understanding of the words derivation did come from the lyrics of the military song you referred to. The speculation that it was derived from a mispronunciation of the word “Griego” sounds quite plausible, especially since it is widely used in Spain and Portugal as well as Latin America. Do Nicaraguans refer to Africans and black-Americans as gringos as well? Or do they refer to them as “negros,” which is perfectly acceptable in their culture because it is the Spanish word for black?
I know Costa Ricans are proud to call themselves Ticos. Do Nicaraguans refer to themselves as Nicas? And how about Catrachos for your neighbors to the north?
Yes, gringo can be applied to all foreigners from "further afield." Wouldn't apply to a Tico or Mexican, too close. But to someone from Europe, yes, or further.
If referring to someone's foreignness, they would say gringo. If wanting to specify someone in a group they use negro for dark skin and chele for light skin. This doesn't imply foreigner as it is used for Nicaraguans or gringos. Two different sets of things. Skin color, since it has wide variance in local population, replaces the Northern European use of hair color as an identifier. Americans are used to referring to blonds or dark hair as an easy identification marker because northern europeans have little skin tone variation. Nicaraguans have little hair colour variation but a lot of skin tone variation, even among siblings. So it serves the same purpose and has no racial or negative connotations.
Nicaraguans definitely call themselves Nicas, constantly. Catracho is definitely the term for Hondureños since it is specifically the endearing Nicaraguan term for them in references to Hondurans coming to our air in the war. Catracho is an extremely positive way to refer to a Hondureño.
The buses here in Leon are the Nica Expreso. The website for events is NicaRumba, etc.
Gringo in Brazil just means a foreigner, mainly a non-Latin American. It is not a bad word in our culture.
Exactly! thanks for the confirmation. it's similar across nearly all of latin america. the same here in nicaragua. same in spain.
Yeah, they’re calling you Gabachos and you don’t even know what the meaning of this because you don’t have knowledge of a second language in local culture
is not a bad thing in latin america if someone is born chele or wero (light skinned) we called him/her el gringo de la familia and if you mistake a local chele with a gringo you made his day youre telling him he has european features and that person takes it as a complement
It sucks because locally people use chele affectionately but nearly all gringos take it offensively because culturally we come from places where it is never okay to reference someone in that way and it only happens in a really negative context. So it is a huge impedance mismatch here in Nicaragua. Then to exacerbate it, it's way too often followed by someone asking for money, which is also seen as offensive to North Americans. So chele gets rapidly associated with beggars and it is the word of being accosted for handouts. I've had to learn that if I hear someone say it, to turn my head and walk away as if I didn't understand it, because it's 100% chance going to be someone who pretends to be friendly, and then suddenly get in my face and ask for money, even in Leon. So while it's an affectionate term, it's also one that generally means you want to get out of that situation. People who know you, people who would use it genuinely, will also know not to use it with you.
I've had it written on table reservations before. The place didn't bother to take our names because we were the only chele for the evening. So the table just said "cheles de poneloya." We also weren't from Poneloya, lol. In that context, it's different, no one is "calling you".
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog ...in USA and europe you have to be extra sensitive with race because of your history of colonialism, slavery, segregation laws or Jim craw that never happened in Nicaragua and rest of central america thats why if you are asian we call you chino, if youre white we call you chele or wero in the case of mexico if youre black we call you negro, if your native like in my case we call you indio and nobody gets offended
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog ..In Niicaragua and central america we never had segregation laws based of race and slavery like in USA and europe thats why if youre asian we call you chino, ne gro if youre black, chele if your white and indio if youre native nobody gets offended but you guys in north america needs to be careful due to your history of racism
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog ..Maxell Smith was an all american guy I met in Miami after 15 years of working and living among cubans he was still known as el gringo lol
Gringo derives from the English word 'Green' as in 'Green Horn' (a young buck that hasn't gained any survival skills yet) or a green sapling that hasn't survived its first winter yet and has been used in the same context in the past. It must have been used by Latin allies to the English because they were close enough to put it in its correct context of a young English Green Horn. I lived in both Brazil and Bolivia back in the 1970s and 80s and had never heard that word used there during that time. The modern use of the word now is more likely from hearing it from television and applying it without knowing the meaning. Latins always use an O or an A at the end of their words (Green = Green-O or Gringo).
it definitely doesn't mean that. it's an OLD Spanish word. no possibility of any english meaning. if you watch the video it's clear why that's impossible.
I believe gringo is a racist slur towards whitey
If its not , what is the equivalent to gringo to describe blacks or latinos
It is not, and that's demonstrable as it refers to ALL foreigners from the perspective of a Spanish speaker OR a Portuguese speaker. It's oldest usages are BY whites to refer to non-white foreigners. The association with any whites at all being references by it is more recent. It means foreigner and equally applies to all races EXCEPT people who are "too close" from the perspective of the speaker.
There is no equivalent to gringo for anyone else because that wouldn't make sense. Gringo is just slang for foreigner. The non-slang is extranjero.
There is no equivalent of "foreigner" for people of a specific race. To have a term be racial, it would have to not be like gringo.
Americans feel, as I said in the video, that gringo refers to them because of our own myopic view that we only hear it from our immediate neighbors to teh south, and they have 99% of their foreigners come from the US and Canada. So it's easy to see that use case come up a lot. But once you get past Mexico, it's really obvious that the term is used all the time, and has no connection to people being white, European, North American or anything of the sort. And once you see the history and know that it originated with white people BEFORE the USA existed... it rules out any possibility of it having such a meaning.
@ScottAlanMillerVlog in the year 2024 the use of the word gringo is to describe white Americans mostly used by Latino Americans
I'm not challenging your history on the word I'm sure you are correct , but today in America it is a slur used by Hispanics towards white Americans
It's not a term of endearment
I halfway agree with this because I find the word "gringo" to be a very racial term. I've never heard of Americans of East Asian descent being referred to as "gringo" but rather "chino", as if they are not American. Black people are only sometimes referred to as "gringo". I've read an anecdote where a black American was only called "gringo" when he acted a certain way. This strikes me as the word being used to mean "white person" or irritating/disagreeable person. It's especially telling when someone just says the word "gringo" in an angry tone, as if it's bad to begin with to be of a different origin. In the past, I wasn't bothered by the word "gringo", but I became more bothered by it as I've seen how it's used because the people that use this word frequently imply that you can't be American unless you're white or annoying. Not to mention calling white people from the UK or Germany "gringos", who are not even American. Sounds negative to me.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog The use of the word "gringo" is different in Brazil. In Brazil, they use the word "gringo" to describe non-Portuguese speaking foreigners (not from Brazil or Portugal). Brazil has people of all kinds of races: mixed, white, East Asian, black, etc. Therefore, it's less of a racial thing, but rather a linguistic/cultural observation. In Brazil, they even call people from Argentina "gringos" sometimes because the word doesn't specifically apply to white Americans. This is a funny misunderstanding because Spanish-speaking countries and Brazil clearly use "gringo" in different ways. Someone from Argentina, for example, would never think that *they* were the "gringo".
@@cameroneagle4370 maybe in America, but that's an American misuse of a standard word that means nothing of the sort. That's neither the origin of the word, but it's also not the Spanish use of it. That's the ENGLISH world gringo, which is derived from the Spanish. THAT might be used to mean things utterly different than the Spanish word means. But when speaking to real Spanish speakers, not English speakers or Spanglish speakers, it absolutely has none of those connotations and Spanish speakers would rarely be aware that Americans misuse the word - nor do people care if Americans misuse a word to mean themselves that means nothing liek that.