L.A. SLANG

As a native of Los Angeles and the barrio, I feel obligated to correct and elaborate on some of the “gang jargon” that appeared in “L.A. Speak” (Palm Latitudes) on May 12.

Calo is the correct spelling of the slang spoken by some people of Mexican ancestry living in the United States. To characterize it as spoken only by gang members is erroneous. Furthermore, it is relatively rare to hear Calo spoken by people from Mexico and other Latin American countries. The scholarly work on Calo suggests that it developed in the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez area sometime before World War II. As an idiom, it is more widely understood than actually used. The best examples of this are Cheech Marin’s films and Paul Rodriguez’s comedy routines; both are liberally sprinkled with Spanglish and Calo.

For as long as I can remember, black gangs have called Latinos esseys because they so often heard us use that word in reference to ourselves. Ese is a Calo word translating as “guy” in this context. Just as someone unfamiliar with English might eventually call American young men “dudes” because they hear them use that word so often, we came to be known as esseys . Here, too, is a case where eses is applied to all Latinos, regardless of their cultural or national origin, because a non-Hispanic usually isn’t aware of those oftentimes significant differences.

Lastly, a Latino gang is sometimes called a clica. Cliqua would have to be pronounced “KLEE-kwah” and clika is incorrect because there is no “k” in Spanish or Calo, except in a very few adapted words such as folklorico. Clica , translated from the French clique , does exist in Spanish.

Please let me emphasize that these are not criticisms of the piece but rather an effort to be factual.

TONY VALDEZ

KTTV NEWS

Los Angeles