pachuco

plural pachucos

1. UScountableA Mexican American, especially a juvenile delinquent in the Los Angeles area.

   Now they saw that Terry was Mexican, a Pachuco wildcat; and that her boy was worse than that.

   1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, chapter 13, in On the Road, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC, part 1

   2 more examples

   I moved farther and farther into the Chicano community. I took Spanish in school and found willing tutors among my friends, who taught me a real-life version of the standard textbook language. I began to dress and comb my hair in the pachuco style of the day. I acquired the social customs and mannerisms of those around me.

   1984 February 4, David Morris, “Different Origins: Joto Güero del West Side”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 28, page 15

   They asked him if he was a pachuco. He said all the pachucos he knew of lived in El Paso. He told em he didn’t know any Mexican pachucos.

   1998, Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

2. uncountableAn argot spoken by that group, sometimes known as caló.

   Like the zoot suit, the Pachuco caló was adopted by a large part of the Chicano youth who did not, in essence, identify themselves as Pachucos.

   1974, Linda Fine Katz, The Evolution of the Pachuco Language and Culture, Los Angeles: University of California, page 41