Apr 18, 2013

gringo goes

Today I tried a new way back home, walking along reforma through the park Chapultapec. Not very pretty, bit once in the park it’s a straight shot to the metro station. However, it’s not very time-effective. Its apparently faster to simply take the metro closer top my office and change. When I stepped in the train, I heard someone say “Hey Gringo!"

(Note on the origin of ‘gringo’- apparently it stems from the US invasion of Mexico City in the Mexican-American war. People would shout at the green combat uniform clad American soldiers “Green-go!" So they say.)

It was the guy I sit next to at work. Apparently he had left 10-15 minutes after I left and had taken the metro directly. So despite my brisk walk, its still faster to metro it up going this direction. Maybe I need to enroll in the EcoBici rental bike program. Or buy some Rollerblades. Every day I see someone commuting on Rollerblades.



So the explanation of the origin of the name ‘gringo’ made me a little uncomfortable because it just seemed a little wrong rather than the pejorative connotations: it just didn’t seem likely that American military forces would be wearing green (fatigues) in the war which was fought in the 1830s.

Turns out my doubt is justified- according to Dr. Wick E. Pedia usage of Gringo to refer to foreigners was recorded in the 1780s in Spain. Sounds like there’s a lot of debate over the true origins of the word, mostly divided into the camp that thinks its a derivation from “Greigio”(Greek, or gibberish, in the usage of “its all Greek to me” i.e. I can’t understand this foreigner) or, the camp advocating the Roma gypsy word “[pere]gringo” as in the falcon, slang for denoting a stranger, a traveler.

I like that, the stranger, the traveler who comes in on the wind, the falcon, el Gringo.



This was a typical jacket worn by American infantry soldiers in the Mexican-American war. Its a kind of sky blue color. None of the uniforms, enlisted or officers, have any green material.

No comments:

Medium is the message

I moved the blog again. I deleted the Tumblr account and moved everything to Medium.com, a more writing-centric website. medium.com/@wende