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How do you feel about being called a Gringo?

Does being called a Gringo bother you?

  • No, being an American is so great that even attempted insults are a compliment

    Votes: 7 22.6%

  • No, it's their problem, not mine

    Votes: 7 22.6%

  • Yes, it bothers me

    Votes: 2 6.5%

  • Other

    Votes: 15 48.4%
  • Total voters
    31
lurchadams said:
Hey, have you ever heard the joke, "The only Mexican you'll ever make happy is the one that digs your grave?". I'm guessing you have.
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So you think Mexicans are racists

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trouble13 said:
So you think Mexicans are racists

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LOL - yeah, that's the meaning of the joke - stay adorable, my friend :)
 
Cardinal said:
Boy, trouble13 sure does like to fully type out the N word at every available opportunity, doesn't he?
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I assure you, there is no red flags there.

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My group, whites, cannot be oppressed as a whole. Not in America and not in the world. We have the power. I've no need to fear racial injustice. If I encounter it somewhere, I can move.

So, no. People can name-call me all they want. It's not perpetuating systemic privilege to my disadvantage so I don't care. I can, including social considerations, safely ignore it.
 
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Polar Bum said:
When I lived in Kigali, it was pretty common to hear the locals refer to us as "M'zungu"...I suppose its simply another word for "Gringo", though its original meaning was slightly different.
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It means white person (Kiswahili) and it being derogatory depends on context and tone. Default is simply white person. I lived on the south side of Mt. Kenya.


ps. White people have plenty of privilege in Africa, ay?
 
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I've been living and working among the hispanic community ever since I first arrived in SoCal in 1981 and I can't even remember the last time someone used that term on me, certainly not with any hostility, or even at all.
Maybe one time if ever.
I attribute that to the fact that the overall hispanic community believes in being civilized and polite, even if they have their own outliers who weren't all that much a prize in any community to begin with. We have ours, they have theirs, it is what it is.

The same could be said for people who used such perjorative terms against my Italian grandparents back when it was fashionable to assign "ginny, wop, goombah" to Italian immigrants.

Today no one even takes that seriously in the Italian community. You're more likely to hear Italian males call each other "goombah" to get a laugh.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
I've been living and working among the hispanic community ever since I first arrived in SoCal in 1981 and I can't even remember the last time someone used that term on me, certainly not with any hostility, or even at all.
Maybe one time if ever.
I attribute that to the fact that the overall hispanic community believes in being civilized and polite, even if they have their own outliers who weren't all that much a prize in any community to begin with. We have ours, they have theirs, it is what it is.

The same could be said for people who used such perjorative terms against my Italian grandparents back when it was fashionable to assign "ginny, wop, goombah" to Italian immigrants.

Today no one even takes that seriously in the Italian community. You're more likely to hear Italian males call each other "goombah" to get a laugh.
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Actually I remember hearing the word goobah as a neutral word. It means my relationship with the guy who was my kids godfather at baptism. It comes from “compare,” and was corrupted to the slang goombah. It then generally meant “friend.” Julius LaRosa sang a song called “Eh Compare,” in the 1950s.
 
Nickyjo said:
Actually I remember hearing the word goobah as a neutral word. It means my relationship with the guy who was my kids godfather at baptism. It comes from “compare,” and was corrupted to the slang goombah. It then generally meant “friend.” Julius LaRosa sang a song called “Eh Compare,” in the 1950s.
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I know the etymology but I also know that if I'm in Atlantic Beach, Long Island, and I see Ernie DiFazio and I yell "Hey goombah! How's it hangin'?", he's gonna laugh, whereas if you do it, the rest of the DiFazios are gonna look up and wonder who just yelled "goombah".
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
I know the etymology but I also know that if I'm in Atlantic Beach, Long Island, and I see Ernie DiFazio and I yell "Hey goombah! How's it hangin'?", he's gonna laugh, whereas if you do it, the rest of the DiFazios are gonna look up and wonder who just yelled "goombah".
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Good point. Remember Robert Duvall being confronted in The Godfather by the Wolz character, "I don't care how many dago greaseball goombahs come out of the woodwork." Followed by the immortal dialog, "I'm German-Irish." ... "well listen to me my Kraut-Mick friend..."
 
SDET said:
I constantly hear this term used to refer to Americans in almost ALL of Latin America. If you heard this, would it bother you? One term that does offend me though is "marajá". It means someone who got their high paying job through patronage. Think of it as a "no show" employee on the payroll.
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It's a pejorative; I don't like it.
 
Nickyjo said:
Good point. Remember Robert Duvall being confronted in The Godfather by the Wolz character, "I don't care how many dago greaseball goombahs come out of the woodwork." Followed by the immortal dialog, "I'm German-Irish." ... "well listen to me my Kraut-Mick friend..."
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LOL, "dago greaseball goombahs"...he was trying to summon the Goombah Apocalypse.
 
On the gringo question (forgive if I repeat info already offered), I have heard the following about its origin: 1- that it came from a song sung by US armed forces as they marched thru Mexico, which had the repeated refrain, “Green grow the rushes, oh.” 2- US wore green uniforms, and Mexicans yelled “Green, go!” 3- the word is a corruption of “griego,” meaning Greek in Spanish. Anyone have other theories? Seems gringo started with Mexicans. The polite term for us was norteamericanos, inaccurate since Mexico is part of the continent, but Mexicans considered themselves Americans too.

Gringo didn’t seem particularly hostile when I lived on the border. Someone has mentioned “gabacho” as being more hostile, and there is “yanqui” as well.
 
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