Pachuco

A pachuco was a Chicano youth in the mid-20th century who wore flashy clothes (such as a Zoot Suit). Some Hispanic-American gangs adopted the pachuco style, thus most whites assumed that anyone dressed in that style was a gang member. Originating in California or Texas, the pachuco style spread to the rest

Related Topics:
Chicano - 20th century - Zoot Suit - California - Texas

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of the American Southwest and to Mexico. (see also Zoot Suit Riots). According to Mexican author Octavio Paz in his essay, The Pachuco, the pachuco phenomenon paralleled the zazou subculture in World War II Paris in style of clothing, music favored (jazz, swing, and jump blues), and attitudes, although there was no known link between the two subcultures. According to another theory, the word pachuco is a derivation of Pachuca, the name of the city in the Mexican state of Hidalgo where Mickey Garcia, thought by some to be the style's originator, is supposed to have come before arriving in El Paso, Texas.

Related Topics:
Mexico - Zoot Suit Riots - Mexican - Octavio Paz - Zazou - World War II - Paris - Jazz - Swing - Jump blues - Pachuca - Hidalgo - El Paso

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Germán Valdez, most known by his artistic nickname "Tin Tan," often displayed the pachuco dress and employed pachuco slang in many of his movies.

Related Topics:
Germán Valdez - Tin Tan

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The pachuco subculture declined in the 1960s. In the early 1970s, due to recession and the increasingly violent nature of gang life resulting in an abandonment of anything that suggested dandyism, Mexican-American gangs adopted a uniform of T-shirts and khakis derived from prison uniforms, and the pachuco was truly dead.

Related Topics:
1960s - 1970s - Dandyism - Mexican-American

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Pachucos spoke what is termed caló (sometimes called "pachuquismo"), a unique argot that employed words and phrases creatively applying formal Spanish terminology, and imaginatively adapted English loan words. To a large extent caló went mainstream and is the last surviving vestige of the Pachuco, often used in the lexicon of urban Latinos to this day.

Related Topics:
Caló - Pachuquismo - Argot - Latino

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