On Sat, Sep 04, 2004 at 08:41:42PM -0600, Gunnar Wolf wrote:
In Mexico, it is regular to call someone from USA 'americano', but it
does raise eyebrows often. 'gringo' is much more used, although it is
perceived as somewhat denigrant (the tale says it means 'green go',
telling the US soldiers [dressed in green] to go back home).
The story that I've heard is that the term was coined during the
U.S. / Mexican war (where the U.S. essentially stole a large part of
Texas from Mexico at gun-point --- personally, as far as I'm
concerned, you can have Texas back as long as you take George Bush
with it :-), the American soldiers were often heard to sing the song,
"Green Grow the Rushes Oh" as they marched through Mexican territory,
and that's where the term "Gringo" came from.