beaner

[Wilson Gray]

Also, FWIW, Carlos Mencia, the Chicano comedian, uses "beaner" as his
usual term for both "Mexican-American" and "Mexican," as does the
legendary Cheech Marin. Carlos is of mixed Mexican and
Central-American (Honduran?) ancestry. He never uses "Chicano," which
I picked up from a DJ specializing in Afro-Latin music, Lionel "Chico"
Sesma, back in the '50's in Los Angeles, who used to lobby for the use
of "Chicano" as the standard term for "Mexican-American." Chico is a
native of Arizona.

In BE, from Texas to California, at least, the everyday term for
anyone perceived to be a member of any Spanish-speaking community
whatsoever, is "Spanish." The term for a member of any
Portuguese-speaking community, is "Portuguee" [poT at gi], even in East
Texas, where you wouldn't expect there to be enough people of
Portuguese-speaking ancestry to engage the attention of us black East
Texans.

Most of the Texas Portuguees were quite "bright-skinned" and had
"good" hair, to the extent that I didn't understand why they didn't go
for white. We knew darker, "teasing-tan" West Indians with "bad" hair
who got away with claiming to be Jewish. The only benefit to this was
not being forced to use the "Colored" entrance and not having to sit
in the "buzzards' roost" at the two local picture shows. My WAG is
that the local whites folks just didn't know what to do with a person
who was clearly not white, but who spoke no known dialect of English.
So, since Jews are not really white, such a person ... WTF? 'Tain't
worth the hassle. Besides, our colored people wouldn't have the nerve
to try this. They were right, of course. We natives were astounded
both that anyone so clearly not white and not Jewish would have the
nerve to do this and that white folk could be dumb enought to go for
it.

-Wilson

On 6/11/07, Neudorf, Paula <paula.neudorf at oup.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Neudorf, Paula" <paula.neudorf at OUP.COM>
> Subject:      Re: beaner
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 'Beaner' in this sense is also in the OED (first quot. 1969); however,
> there are no quotations for 'brown as a beaner' at that definition.
>
> For what it's worth, I grew up in Nevada where 'beaner' was very
> common to me. I've never heard 'brown as a beaner'. The phrase gets
> only 1 hit on Google, and no hits on Nexis, so I'm guessing it's
> either really rare or too recent to have appeared in a lot of
> publications.
>
> Paula Neudorf
> OED
>
> ************************
> From: Frank Abate
> Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2007 2:25 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: beaner
>
>
> Recording for all the derogatory/disparaging expression:
>
>
>
>             "brown as a beaner"
>
>
>
> This is heard pretty commonly around here (Cincinnati area) in
> reference to
> people from Mexico.  It is NOT complimentary, in the using of it OR
> (esp.)
> in the receiving,
>
>
>
> Just opening this up for discussion.  DARE has beaner, but not the
> simile.
> I'm not sure if Spears has it in one of his phrases or slang
> dictionaries.
>
>
>
> Frank Abate
>
> FABATE at cinci.rr.com
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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