A question for Mexicans and/or Mexican-Americans?

Question

What is the difference between

Piesas
Chicano
and
Pocho?

Are these terms offensive?

My BF is Mexican-American and he's been called a "pocho" yet his mother says she is "chicana" and recently I heard his mother refer to some Mexican men as "piesas"

My BF says he cant explain. Could you briefly elaborate?

no no ... it is pronouned PIE-SAH... I could be spelling it wrong

Answer 1

i can help you out here. it's actually Paisas...you would call your male friends Paisas. like, "what up paisa?" or "he's my paisa". kind of like saying, he's my friend. It's slang for what we'd say as homie. so Paisa and homie are like the same. Some people view it as offensive. I personally don't use the word because of how people will take it.

Chicano is for a male, and chicana is for a female. a Chicana/o from what i understand, is a person who was born in the US to mexican parents. I get called a Pocha by my mexican cousins. Pocha is also a person who was born in the US to mexican parents, from mexico. I see Chicano/a and Pocho as the same thing.
in my spanish class, spanish for spanish speakers, my teacher told us that if we were EVER called pocho/a, we should take it as offensive...she said it was very rude to call someone that. I've never seen it as rude and disrespectful, mainly becauase i've never been told it's wrong, by my parents. my cousins call me pocha all the time, but i don't take it offensive...i know it's all in fun.
it really depends on the person these terms are being said to...people will interpret them differently...good or bad.
hope i helped.

Answer 2

Ok Piesas is actually spelled Paisas. It's short for Paisano. Which is what Mexicans from Mexico call fellow Mexicans. The root word Pais means country. Therefore Paisano or Paisa is what you would call someone from the same country.

Chicano on the other hand means Mexican/American. It comes from the word Mexicano but shortened to Xicano eventually changed to Chicano.

Pocho, I have NEVER heard in my life. So I don't know what that means. Hope I informed you with the other two. Take care...

Answer 3

StarGazer is correct.

Pocho is a Mexican American; Both parents born in Mexico and the child Born in the Unite States and raised as an American.

Non are offensive.

"Paisa" can be used as a stereotype towards Immigrants or farm workers.

Answer 4

Not Mexican but I am Hispanic. Chicano is a term used for Mexican Americans. The other two I've never heard of. Did you mean paisanos? (that just means people who were born in Mexico like Australians are called aussies).