A gringo or gringa is someone considered a foreigner from the perspective of Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries in Latin America. Gringo usually refers to a foreigner, especially from the United States or Canada. In English it often carries a derogatory connotation, and occasionally does so in Spanish and Portuguese. Possible other connotations may include monolingualism, a lack of understanding of Latino culture, and blond hair with white skin. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use in English comes from John Woodhouse Audubon's Western Journal of 1849–1850, in which Audubon reports that his party was hooted and shouted at and called "Gringoes" while passing through the town of Cerro Gordo, Veracruz.
Etymology
The word gringo originally referred to any kind of foreigner. It was first recorded in 1787 in the Spanish Diccionario castellano con las voces de Ciencias y Artes: The most likely theory is that it originates from griego, used in the same way as the English phrase "it's Greek to me". Spanish is known to have used Greek as a stand-in for incomprehensibility, though now less common, such as in the phrase hablar en griego. The 1817 Nuevo diccionario francés-español, for example, gives gringo and griego as synonyms in this context: This derivation requires two steps: griego > grigo, and grigo > gringo. Corominas notes that while the first change is common in Spanish, there is no perfect analogy for the second, save in Old French. However, there are other Spanish words whose colloquial form contains an epentheticn, such as ' and ', and ' and '. It is also possible that the final form was influenced by the wordjeringonza, a game like Pig Latin also used to mean "gibberish". Alternatively, it has been suggested that gringo could derive from the Caló language, the language of the Romani people of Spain, as a variant of the hypothetical *peregringo, 'peregrine', 'wayfarer', 'stranger'.
Folk etymologies
There are several folk etymologies that purport to derive the origin of gringo from word coincidences. Many theories date the word to the Mexican–American War, as a result of American troops singing a song which began with "Green grows..." such as "Green Grow the Rushes, O", "Green Grow the Lilacs", and various others. Other theories involve locals yelling "Green, go!" at invading American soldiers, in reference to their supposedly green uniforms. Another derives it from Irish "Erin go bragh", which served as the motto for Saint Patrick's Battalion who fought alongside the Mexican army.
Modern usage
Spain
Gringo is only heard among Latin American immigrants or native Spaniards imitating their speech for fun or solidarity. These terms can be merely descriptive, derogatory or friendly depending on the context and situation.
Argentina
The word gringo is mostly used in rural areas following the original Spanish meaning. Gringo in Argentina was used to refer to non-Spanish European immigrants who first established agricultural colonies in the country. The word was used for Swiss, German, Polish, Italian and other immigrants, but since the Italian immigrants were the larger group, the word used to be mostly linked to Italians in the lunfardo argot. It has also found use in the intermittent exercise Gringo-Gaucho between Argentine Naval Aviation and USNaircraft carriers.
In Brazil, the word gringo means simply foreigner, and has no connection to any physical characteristics or specific countries. Unlike most Hispanic American countries, in which gringo is never used to refer to other Latin Americans, in Brazil there is no such distinction in the use of the term. Most foreign footballers in the Brazilian Championship that came from other Latin American countries are nevertheless referred as "gringos" by the sport media and by sport fans. Tourists are called gringos, and there is no differentiation in the use of the term for Latin Americans or people from other regions, like Europe. As the word has no connection to physical appearance in Brazil, black African or African American foreigners are also called gringos, unlike some other countries in which the term implies fair skin. Popularly used terms for fair-skinned and blond people are generally based in specific nationalities, like "alemão", "russo" or, in some regions, "galego" which are used for both Brazilians and foreigners with such characteristics, regardless of their real ethnic origins.
Activism
In 1969, José Ángel Gutiérrez, one of the leaders of the Mexican American Youth Organization, said his and MAYO's use of the term, rather than referring to non-Latinos, referred to people or institutions with policies or attitudes that reflect racism and violence.
Other uses
In Mexican cuisine, a gringa is a flour tortilla with al pastor pork meat with cheese, heated on a comal and optionally served with a salsa de chile. The name is either a reference to the white flour used, or its creation, when two women from the United States asked a Mexico Citytaquería for a Mexican dish but disliked corn tortillas.
