Cholo
Encyclopedia : C : CH : CHO : Cholo
- Cholo is also an alternate name for the Emberá languages.
North America
In the United States and Mexico, Cholo is a fairly offensive term implying a typically Mexican mestizo gangster. A cholo is stereotypically depicted as wearing baggy chinos (khaki pants) or khaki shorts with white knee-high socks, so-called wifebeater sleeveless t-shirts, flannel shirts buttoned all the way to the top or unbuttoned except for the top button, and a shaved head or slicked-back hair. A popular "cholo" brand is Dickies. This same designation may also be associated with black ink tattoos, commonly involving gang calligraphy, or family names and art. A cholo might also stereotypically own a lowrider, like music like Zapp and Roger's "More Bounce To The Ounce" and "Doo Wa Ditty", and use the Chicano term of "Ese" (which in Spanish means "that one" or "that guy"), in a way to call someone dude, like "What's up ese?" or "Órale ese!". Another term with essentially the same meaning is "Vato" and can be used in the same way. Chicanos are said to be the first in starting the lowrider trend.It is this particular image that Cheech Marin drew on in the Cheech and Chong films. There is also a reference to "the cholo" in Assault on Precinct 13. In the 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite, Nano and Arturo De Silva play characters simply referred to as "Cholo No. 1" and "Cholo No. 2".The usage was more prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s than today, though the usage was still fairly widespread in some areas in the 1990s.
In South Texas, cholos are sometimes referred to as chongers.
In North America or the English-speaking world of the United States, the word is most primarily and heavily used in Caló slang, but it in turn has infiltrated into mainstream American English use. Most specifically, the term "cholo" when used in American English is likely to be done so by persons associated with American youth movements such as the Chicano/Mexican-American/white & black lowrider subcultures, African-American gangsters of the Western United States, or the hip hop scene in general.
South America
Under the Caste System of colonial Latin America, the term Cholo originally applied to the children resulting from the union of a Mestizo and an Amerindian; that is, someone of three quarters Amerindian and one quarter Spanish ancestry. More precisely, the term was specific to the Viceroyalty of Peru and neighbouring Andean regions of South America. In Mexico and Central America the term "Coyote" was used with a synonymous meaning. In El Salvador, the word cholo means big, large (grande).
During the colonial era a myriad of other terms (mestizo, castizo, chamizo, etc.) were in use to denote other individuals of European/Amerindian ancestry in ratios smaller or greater of Spanish to Amerindian ancestry. The term is most commonly associated with Peru and Bolivia.
Peru and Bolivia
-->In modern-day Peru and Bolivia, cholo is still a widely used term which continues to refer to people with noticeably greater amounts of Amerindian than European ancestry. Among Peruvians, the term mestizo (which in other Latin American countries is usually used for those of relatively equal amounts of Spanish to Amerindian ancestry) has also become increasingly common to refer to cholos in an effort to consolidate the population into a collective national mindset.
In recent years, the meaning of cholo has further shifted to include a vast number of people of exclusively Native American ancestry. In this latter context, the term often implies indigenous people who have attained to a higher social status by moving from the rural or interior regions of the country to the urban areas and cities, have taken up western (Hispanic/mestizo) cultural practices, are bilingual (fluent in both Spanish and an Amerindian language) but deny any knowledge of a native language, down-play their native ascendance and identify solely with their newly adopted cultural norms.
In that latter context, the usage is somewhat pejorative. It might be comparable to Yuppie.
During the presidential campaign leading to his eventual electoral victory, the former president of Peru, Alejandro Toledo, successfully reached out to the largest segment of the Peruvian population - 45% of which is composed of indigenous Peruvians in addition to the cholos - by acclaiming his indigenous heritage and identifying himself as a Cholo. Spanish-language media played on this title, and referred to him as el cholo throughout the campaign and in the initial stages of his presidency. El cholo was especially favoured when contrasting him to the outgoing Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, nicknamed el chino (The Chinaman), although Fujimori was actually of Japanese descent.
-- 05:17, 17 July 2006 (UTC)===Ecuador===
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In Ecuador, "Cholo" is also used to denote a greater affinity to Amerindian than Spanish heritage for mixed race people, however, unlike the way in which the term is used in other countries, the affinity spoken of is in a cultural context, not a phenotypic one.
Cholos in Ecuador are typically communities whose members are actually mestizos, of equal and often times greater Spanish than Amerindian ancestry. Fascinatingly however, apart from their apparent Spanish descent and monolingualism in the Spanish language, their garb, culture and customs, traditional occupations, and many times surnames, are typical of highland Quichua Amerindians, and not of their Hispanic predecessors. This trend is quite in contrast to the evolution of mestizo identity and life throughout the rest of Latin America, where the emphasis has always been placed solely on the Spanish side.
The most famous of these are the "Cholas Cuencanas", from the colonial city of Cuenca in the southern region of that country.
When not specifically referring to the above-mentioned mestizo communities, the term cholo may also have the same connotations of greater Amerindian ancestry than Spanish of a mixed race person as it does in other Andean countries.
The term as used in Ecuador is used as a supposedly neutral term to designate the group described above. It is used, however, as a perjorative term to generalize someone who is "low class," a designation usually reserved for those of greater Amerindian admixture.
Chile and Argentina
In Chile and Argentina cholo also conotes a person of unmixed Amerindian ancestry or predominatly Amerindian appearance, however, who the word is applied to varies even if the phenotypic requirements are met.In Chile the term is used almost exclusively to refer to Peruvians and Bolivians and the migrants of those two countries in Chile. It is usually intended as an insult. It may also be applied to anyone of unmixed Amerindian ancestry or predominatly Amerindian appearance, except if the person is a fellow Chilean.
Cholo and Chola are also commonly used as nicknames, especially by those who would be considered cholos. In many regions the word is not at all considered a negative epithet and may be known or used only as a nickname.
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