Cholo

[1][2] In his work Vocabulario en Lengua Castellana y Mexicana (1571), Fray Alonso de Molina reported that the word "cholo" or "xolo" derives from Nahuatl and means paje, moço, criado o esclavo (page, waiter, servant or slave).

Cholo is a word from the Barlovento Islas [later known as Windward Islands]; it means "dog", not of the purebred variety, but of very disreputable origin; and the Spaniards use it for insult and vituperation".

"[5][6] In Imperial Mexico, the terms cholo and coyote co-existed,[citation needed] indicating mixed mestizo and indigenous ancestry.

Under the casta designations of colonial Mexico, the term rarely appears; however, an 18th-century casta painting by Ignacio María Barreda shows the grouping Español, India, with their offspring a mestizo or cholo[7] Cholo as an English-language term dates at least to 1851, when it was used by Herman Melville in his novel Moby-Dick, referring to a Spanish-speaking sailor, possibly derived from the Windward Islands reference mentioned above.

Isela Alexsandra Garcia of the University of California at Berkeley writes that the term can be traced to Mexico, where in the early part of the last century, it referred to "culturally marginal" mestizos and Native American origin.

[10] The term "cholo courts" was defined in The Journal of San Diego History as "sometimes little more than instant slums, as shanties were strewn almost randomly around city lots in order to create cheap horizontal tenements.

[12] A "cholo" in Bolivia is the name given to a campesino (peasant, farmer) who moved to the city, and though the term was also originally derogatory, it has now become more of a symbol of indigenous power.

The word "cholo/a" is considered a common and/or official enough term in Bolivia such that "cholo" has been included as its own ethnic group option in demographic surveys conducted in the country.

Of the total of this subgroup around half are in the mountains, an important part of this segment due to migration are on the coast, usually in Lima, major urban centers and finally around a quarter (1/4) in the jungle.