Pocho

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April 3, 2012 | 12:12 PM | By

Terms of assimilation: What do we call people who assimilate into another culture?

Photo by Aniol I/Flickr (Creative Commons)

A panel that I moderated last week on what defines the 1.5 generation, immigrants who arrive in the U.S. as children and adolescents, yielded enough material for many, many related posts. Panelists and audience members connected over identity, the immigrant experience as lived by young people and how it shapes them, among other things. And of course, the role of language.

On the language front, a follow-up question via email this week from an audience member, my KPCC reporter colleague Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, has prompted a great collection of replies from the panelists. First, his question:

In Mexico the word “pocho” is used to describe someone who’s left Mexico and has assimilated into another culture. Is there a word used by Koreans, Salvadorans, or Filipinos to mean someone who’s assimilated into another country and left the language and culture of the home country?

The first answer came from Cal Poly Pomona sociologist Mary Yu Danico, a 1.5 generation Korean American and author of “The 1.5 Generation: Becoming Korean American in Hawaii:” 

In Korea, they refer to any person of Korean descent in the diaspora at gyopo. Gyopos, however, do not always leave language and culture behind..

In Hawaii they refer to Japanese Americans born on the mainland as katonk.

Dennis Arguelles, a second-generation Filipino American and director of program development for Search To Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA), offered this:

My understanding is that there isn’t a generic term for like “pocho” for Filipinos, but anyone who’s assimilated into American culture, even if they are 1.5, is simply referred to as “Fil Am.”

UCLA Chicana/o Studies professor Leisy Abrego, a 1.5 generation Salvadoran American, suggested a term used not only by Salvadorans but also other Latinos:

I asked around and the only thing I got from Salvadorans was “agringado,” which translates loosely into “whitewashed.”

One Spanish definition describing “agringado” translates roughly as “adopting the look or customs of the gringo, imitating in some way or behaving like one.” It’s a word I remember hearing from the elders in my family as I was growing up as a 1.5er, becoming Americanized.

Are there other terms like these not listed here? Feel free to post them below.

FILED UNDER: 1.5, 1.5 generation, Agringago, Assimilation, Fil-Am, Gringo, Gyopo, Katonk, Pocho
January 25, 2012 | 7:44 AM | By

Is ‘Mexican Mitt’ a pocho? A peek behind the Twitter parody

Screen shot from Pocho.com

On yesterday’s Patt Morrison show on KPCC, cartoonist and funny man Lalo Alcaraz revealed – sort of – that’s he’s “a hundred percent” behind the Mitt Romney twitter parody, @Mexican Mitt.

That meaning a hundred percent behind “Mexican Mitt” as a supporter, of course.

“I think we had a misunderstanding, Patt,” Alcaraz joked. “When I said I was the man behind Mexican Mitt, I meant I am behind him a hundred percent, as (are) all Latinos.”

Alcaraz, who recently relaunched the Pocho.com political satire site, was cagey about @Mexican Mitt when I asked him about it recently, too. But on air, his “Ajuua!!” does sound suspiciously like that of the charro suit-clad Romney parody, who has more than 3,000 followers.

For those not familiar with @MexicanMitt, the humor revolves around Republican presidential candidate Romney’s family roots in Mexico, something he’s only recently begun talking about on the campaign trail. He’s the descendant of Mormons who moved to Mexico from the U.S. in the late 1800s to avoid anti-polygamy laws. His grandfather and father were born in the northern state of Chihuahua. His father came to the U.S. with his parents at age five.

Unlike the reserved real Mitt, “Mexican Mitt” is, um, outspoken, with a personality not unlike that of the crazy uncle who is the life of the family party, that is until he starts offending the guests.

In what Alcaraz described on the show as a “kind of this norteño, weird shouting Spanish” (and hilarious Spanglish), “Mexican Mitt” opines heartily on the presidential race. This week he provided running commentary on the Florida debate (his response to the real Romney’s self-deportation comment was “I’M SELF DEPORTING TO MY RANCHO, for the VICTORY PARTY! Ajuua!”), saying things the real candidates never would (“I MADE UN CHINGO DE DINERO!” or “I am NOT GONNA aoplogize for ESTEALING YOUR MONEY LEGALLY! Ajua!”).

Beyond @MexicanMitt, the “La Cucaracha” cartoonist also talked about his latest project, the revived Pocho.com, and the evolution of pochismo. (The term “pocho” began as an insulting way to describe Mexican Americans who had lost their cultural connection to Mexico, but has since been reclaimed as a badge of pride.) He had a nice description of that evolution at the end:

“The pocho concept, it’s expanding to everyone…there might be a better word for it in Japanese…but you know what, ‘pocho’ applies to everybody, because we are all moving within different cultures. Many of us are married to people from other cultures. We are creating pochismo every minute of the day. Every time you drive by the sign that says ‘pastrami burrito,’ that is pochismo right there.”

Audio from the complete interview can be downloaded here.

FILED UNDER: Lalo Alcaraz, Mexican Mitt, Mitt Romney, Pocho, Pocho.com, Presidential election