Caló (also known as Pachuco) is an argot or slang of Mexican Spanish that originated during the first half of the 20th century in the Southwestern United States.
According to Chicano artist and writer José Antonio Burciaga: Caló originally defined the Spanish gypsy dialect.
These words were left in isolated pockets of Northern New Mexico and the Southwest, especially New Mexico, by conquistadores españoles.He goes on to describe the speech of his father, a native of El Paso, Texas: My father had a vocabulary of Spanish words that to this day are not found in popular Spanish language dictionaries.
And though he knew "standard" Spanish of "educated" people, he also worked, lived, laughed and cried with words that were more expressive and indigenous to the border than standard Spanish.The Caló of El Paso was probably influenced by the wordplay common to the speech of residents of the Tepito barrio of Mexico City.
One such resident was the comic film actor Germán Valdés, a native of Mexico City who grew up in Ciudad Juárez (just across the US-Mexico border from El Paso).
[2] Caló words and expressions became cultural symbols of the Chicano Movement during the 1960s and 1970s, when they were used frequently in literature and poetry.