An Essay On Cholo In Peru

The word cholo has been mainly associated with people of Mexican descent, and little or no attention has been paid to the word’s meaning in other countries. In Peru, the word cholo has a different meaning than in Mexico. Cholo is a word with a semiotic meaning; first recorded during colonial times to name a group within the caste system. Inca Garcilazo de la Vega was the first one to use the word in his Comentarios Reales de los Incas, he writes “"The child of a Black male and an Indian female, or of an Indian male and Black female, they call mulato and mulata. The children of these they call cholo. Cholo is a word from the Windward Islands; it means dog, not of the purebred variety, but of very disreputable origin; and the Spaniards use it for insult and vituperation" (Inca Garcilazo de la Vega). Peru is located in South America and is considered to be a heterogeneous country. While the majority of its population is of Andean decent, the elites (white or mestizo) make all the decisions for the country. The natives have none or very little legal representation, and there have been many human rights violations against indigenous communities. During the 40’s and 50’s, there was a huge migration of people from the Peruvian Andes to the capital Lima running away

One of his theories states that meaning is constructed via a complex negotiation among consumers, producers, texts and context. The word cholo was constructed first by the Spaniards and perpetuated by Limenos (people from Lima), as a derogatory term to describe the Andean communities. Hall also argues that there are two systems of representation, in this case the word cholo fits into the conceptual system. According to Hall a conceptual system is one in which all sort of objects, people and events are correlated with a set of concepts or mental representation which we carry around in our