Pachuco
Encyclopedia
Pachucos are Chicano
youths who developed their own subculture
during the 1930s and 1940s in the Southwestern United States
. They wore distinctive clothing (such as zoot suit
s) and spoke their own dialect of Mexican Spanish
, called Caló
or Pachuco. Due to their double marginalization stemming from their youth and ethnicity, there has always been a close association and cultural cross-pollination between the Pachuco subculture and gang
subculture.
, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez
, Mexico, and moved westward, following the line of migration of Mexican railroad workers ("traquero
s") into Los Angeles, where it developed further. The word "pachuco" originated, probably early in the 20th century, in a Mexican Spanish
slang
term for a resident of the cities of El Paso and Juárez. Even today, El Paso and Juárez are called "El Chuco" or "El Pasiente" by some.
Another theory is that the derivation of the word "pachuco" came from Pachuca
, the name of the city in the Mexican state of Hidalgo where Mickey Garcia, thought by some to be the originator of the zoot suit, befriended a local of the town known as "El Hueso". El Hueso was an elderly man known only to have a tattoo
on his right shoulder. It is unknown what the tattoo said but some have claimed that it bore two names: one beginning with a "J" and the other with a "B". Mickey Garcia brought his style from Pachuca, Mexico, to San Diego. Another theory says that the word derives from pocho, a derogatory term for a Mexican born in the United States who has lost touch with the Mexican culture
. The word is also said to mean "punk" or "troublemaker".
Another theory is put forth by author Laura L. Cummings who postulates a possible indigenous origin of the term.
The Mexican comedian and film actor Germán Valdés
, better-known by his artistic name "Tin-Tan", popularized Pachuco dress and slang to the Mexican population through his films during the Golden age
of Mexican films. The influence of Valdés is responsible for the assimilation of several Caló terms into Mexican slang.
The Mexican Nobel laureate
Octavio Paz
writes in the essay, "The Pachuco and Other Extremes" that the Pachuco phenomenon paralleled the zazou
subculture in World War II
-era Paris in style of clothing, music favored (jazz
, swing
, and jump blues
), and attitudes, although there was no known link between the two subcultures.
The pachuco subculture declined in the 1960s, evolving into the Chicano
style. This style preserved some of the pachuco slang while adding a strong political element characteristic of the late 1960s American life.
In the early 1970s, a recession and the increasingly violent nature of gang life resulted in an abandonment of anything that suggested dandyism. Accordingly, Mexican-American gangs adopted a uniform of T-shirt
s and khaki
s derived from prison uniforms, and the pachuco style died out. However, the zoot suit remains a popular choice of formal wear for urban and rural Latino youths in heavily ethnic neighborhoods. It is typically worn at a prom, or in some cases, at informal Latino university commencement ceremonies.
Pachucos called their slang Caló
(sometimes called "pachuquismo"), a unique argot
that drew on the original Spanish Gypsy Caló, Mexican Spanish, the New Mexican dialect of Spanish
, and American English, employing words and phrases creatively applied. To a large extent, Caló went mainstream and is one of the last surviving vestige of the Pachuco, often used in the lexicon of some urban Latino
s in the United States to this day.
The same word "pachuco" is used in Costa Rica
to define Costa Rican slang. It nevertheless differs from the Mexican slang.
In Costa Rica the term "pachuco" refers to a vulgar or indecent person.
s that dictated how a person should dress. Another variation included full, knee-length skirts with the standard zoot suit finger-tip jacket. Sometimes, she donned the standard heavy gold pocket chain.
This style was associated with gang membership and activity. The idea of gang membership and gang activity came from the Zoot Suit Riots
that took place mainly in Southern California
. The negative image of the male zoot suiter as a "violent gangster" naturally extended to the Pachuca as well. The promiscuous image came from contravening the traditional "see and be seen" fashion aesthetic — the Pachuca's high public visibility during a time when the "good" minority woman belonged in the home was seen in a scandalous light.
The Pachuca's challenge to the dominant perception of femininity came during the period between the advent of women's suffrage
in 1920 and the upsurge in feminist
activism of the 1960s and 1970s.
Chicano
The terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...
youths who developed their own subculture
Subculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
during the 1930s and 1940s in the Southwestern United States
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
. They wore distinctive clothing (such as zoot suit
Zoot suit
A zoot suit is a suit with high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed, pegged trousers, and a long coat with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders. This style of clothing was popularized by African Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Italian Americans during the late 1930s and the 1940s...
s) and spoke their own dialect of Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish is a version of the Spanish language, as spoken in Mexico and in various places of Canada and the United States of America, where there are communities of Mexican origin....
, called Caló
Caló (Chicano)
Caló is an argot or slang of Mexican Spanish which originated during the first half of the 20th century in the Southwestern United States. It is the product of zoot-suit pachuco culture.-Origin:...
or Pachuco. Due to their double marginalization stemming from their youth and ethnicity, there has always been a close association and cultural cross-pollination between the Pachuco subculture and gang
Gang
A gang is a group of people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen...
subculture.
Origin
The Pachuco style originated in El PasoEl Paso
El Paso, a city in the U.S. state of Texas, on the border with Mexico.El Paso may also refer to:-Geography:Colombia:* El Paso, CesarSpain:*El Paso, Santa Cruz de TenerifeUnited States:...
, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez , officially known today as Heroica Ciudad Juárez, but abbreviated Juárez and formerly known as El Paso del Norte, is a city and seat of the municipality of Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Juárez's estimated population is 1.5 million people. The city lies on the Rio Grande...
, Mexico, and moved westward, following the line of migration of Mexican railroad workers ("traquero
Traquero
A traquero is a railroad track worker, especially a Mexican or Mexican American railroad track worker . The word derives from "traque", Spanglish for "track".While the U.S...
s") into Los Angeles, where it developed further. The word "pachuco" originated, probably early in the 20th century, in a Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish is a version of the Spanish language, as spoken in Mexico and in various places of Canada and the United States of America, where there are communities of Mexican origin....
slang
Slang
Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...
term for a resident of the cities of El Paso and Juárez. Even today, El Paso and Juárez are called "El Chuco" or "El Pasiente" by some.
Another theory is that the derivation of the word "pachuco" came from Pachuca
Pachuca
Pachuca, formally Pachuca de Soto is the capital of the Mexican state of Hidalgo. It is located in the south-central part of the state. Pachuca de Soto is also the name of the municipality of which the city serves as municipal seat...
, the name of the city in the Mexican state of Hidalgo where Mickey Garcia, thought by some to be the originator of the zoot suit, befriended a local of the town known as "El Hueso". El Hueso was an elderly man known only to have a tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
on his right shoulder. It is unknown what the tattoo said but some have claimed that it bore two names: one beginning with a "J" and the other with a "B". Mickey Garcia brought his style from Pachuca, Mexico, to San Diego. Another theory says that the word derives from pocho, a derogatory term for a Mexican born in the United States who has lost touch with the Mexican culture
Culture of Mexico
Mexico has changed rapidly during the 20th century. In many ways, contemporary life in its cities has become similar to that in neighboring United States and Europe. Most Mexican villagers follow the older way of life more than the city people do. More than 45% of the people of Mexico live in...
. The word is also said to mean "punk" or "troublemaker".
Another theory is put forth by author Laura L. Cummings who postulates a possible indigenous origin of the term.
The Mexican comedian and film actor Germán Valdés
Germán Valdés
Germán Genaro Cipriano Gomez Valdés Castillo , better known as Tin-Tan, was an actor, singer and comedian who was born in Mexico City but was raised and began his career in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. He often displayed the pachuco dress and employed pachuco slang in many of his movies, some with his...
, better-known by his artistic name "Tin-Tan", popularized Pachuco dress and slang to the Mexican population through his films during the Golden age
Golden age of the cinema of Mexico
The Golden Age of Mexican cinema is a period between 1936 and 1969 where the quality and economic success of the cinema of Mexico reached its peak....
of Mexican films. The influence of Valdés is responsible for the assimilation of several Caló terms into Mexican slang.
The Mexican Nobel laureate
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Early life and writings:...
writes in the essay, "The Pachuco and Other Extremes" that the Pachuco phenomenon paralleled the zazou
Zazou
The Zazous were a subculture in France during World War II. They were young people expressing their individuality by wearing big or garish clothing and dancing wildly to swing jazz and bebop...
subculture in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
-era Paris in style of clothing, music favored (jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, swing
Swing (genre)
Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States...
, and jump blues
Jump blues
Jump blues is an up-tempo blues usually played by small groups and featuring horns. It was very popular in the 1940s, and the movement was a precursor to the arrival of rhythm and blues and rock and roll...
), and attitudes, although there was no known link between the two subcultures.
The pachuco subculture declined in the 1960s, evolving into the Chicano
Chicano
The terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...
style. This style preserved some of the pachuco slang while adding a strong political element characteristic of the late 1960s American life.
In the early 1970s, a recession and the increasingly violent nature of gang life resulted in an abandonment of anything that suggested dandyism. Accordingly, Mexican-American gangs adopted a uniform of T-shirt
T-shirt
A T-shirt is a style of shirt. A T-shirt is buttonless and collarless, with short sleeves and frequently a round neck line....
s and khaki
Khaki
This article is about the fabric. For the color, see Khaki . Kaki, another name for the persimmon, is often misspelled "Khaki".Khaki is a type of fabric or the color of such fabric...
s derived from prison uniforms, and the pachuco style died out. However, the zoot suit remains a popular choice of formal wear for urban and rural Latino youths in heavily ethnic neighborhoods. It is typically worn at a prom, or in some cases, at informal Latino university commencement ceremonies.
Pachucos called their slang Caló
Caló (Chicano)
Caló is an argot or slang of Mexican Spanish which originated during the first half of the 20th century in the Southwestern United States. It is the product of zoot-suit pachuco culture.-Origin:...
(sometimes called "pachuquismo"), a unique argot
Argot
An Argot is a secret language used by various groups—including, but not limited to, thieves and other criminals—to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations. The term argot is also used to refer to the informal specialized vocabulary from a particular field of study, hobby, job,...
that drew on the original Spanish Gypsy Caló, Mexican Spanish, the New Mexican dialect of Spanish
New Mexican Spanish
New Mexican Spanish is a variant or dialect of Spanish spoken in the United States, primarily in the northern part of the state of New Mexico and the southern part of the state of Colorado...
, and American English, employing words and phrases creatively applied. To a large extent, Caló went mainstream and is one of the last surviving vestige of the Pachuco, often used in the lexicon of some urban Latino
Latino
The demonyms Latino and Latina , are defined in English language dictionaries as:* "a person of Latin-American descent."* "A Latin American."* "A person of Hispanic, especially Latin-American, descent, often one living in the United States."...
s in the United States to this day.
The same word "pachuco" is used in Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
to define Costa Rican slang. It nevertheless differs from the Mexican slang.
In Costa Rica the term "pachuco" refers to a vulgar or indecent person.
La Pachuca
The "Pachuca", the female counterpart of the Pachuco, had as strong an aesthetic sensibility as the male zoot suiter. The Pachuca's hairstyle tended to be a high "coif" (a more pronounced version of the typical hair style of the time), sometimes using hair grease. Her makeup was heavy, particularly the lipstick. The preferred color of clothing was black. One very loud version of the Pachuca look entailed wearing the masculine zoot suit, albeit with modifications to fit the female form. This was very subversive at the time because of long-held gender roleGender role
Gender roles refer to the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex in the context of a specific culture, which differ widely between cultures and over time...
s that dictated how a person should dress. Another variation included full, knee-length skirts with the standard zoot suit finger-tip jacket. Sometimes, she donned the standard heavy gold pocket chain.
This style was associated with gang membership and activity. The idea of gang membership and gang activity came from the Zoot Suit Riots
Zoot Suit Riots
The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots in 1943 during World War II that erupted in Los Angeles, California between white sailors and Marines stationed throughout thehi c mlc city and Latino youths, who were recognizable by the zoot suits they favored...
that took place mainly in Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
. The negative image of the male zoot suiter as a "violent gangster" naturally extended to the Pachuca as well. The promiscuous image came from contravening the traditional "see and be seen" fashion aesthetic — the Pachuca's high public visibility during a time when the "good" minority woman belonged in the home was seen in a scandalous light.
The Pachuca's challenge to the dominant perception of femininity came during the period between the advent of women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
in 1920 and the upsurge in feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
activism of the 1960s and 1970s.