24th Apr 2004
Gringo!
I was hanging around on the stoop of my building for a while today as Adi waited for an airport shuttle (she’s off to Hungary yet again), and the whole while some guy was also sitting on the stoop enjoying the warm afternoon. He seemed a bit out of it, muttering to himself and signalling to someone across the street and even shouting to said person, except that said person wasn’t really there, just in weird neighbor’s immagination.
As it factors into the story in a moment, I should mention that this particular weird neighbor was some flavor of Hispanic.
After Adi’s shuttle took her away, I went to a Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood and got some chicken mole. Coming back, 15 minutes later, I walk past the guy, still sitting in the same place, who cursed at me unmistakeably, “Gringo!”
Seemed like kind of an odd thing to say, not only because we’re neighbors and I am unware of offending him in any way, but this is, after all, North of the border, so it seems like he’d have to curse out a lot of gringos to get that grievance out of his system.
Whatever.
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Actually, “gringo” isn’t necessarily pejorative, depending on the context in which it is used. Univ. of Chicago translates it as “foreigner, not speaking Spanish” and Velazquez defines it someone who “speaks a foreign language, especially English or German.” If you felt insulted, you could have told him, “Vete a feir papas” (go fry potatoes) or, stronger, “Vete a hacer pu?etas” (go jerk off), both popular in Puerto Rico. Or you could have said, “Vete al carajo/a la chingada/a la verga.” (Go get fucked), but those are fighting words.
Well, it seemed clear he wasn’t saying it in a friendly way. He more or less spat it. I’ll try to remember the “go fry potatoes” one, though I felt it most prudent to just ignore him. Last thing I want to do is start rumbling with the neighborhood nutters.
BTW, Sean (and others), I’d advise you against leaving your email address here, unless you get a lot of feedback to your posts, as dropping your email address on public forums like this is a top way spammers harvest addresses. Unfortunately, I don’t know that I can actually turn off that form on my blog publishing software, but I do leave it as optional, not required.