[gacook]

Originally Posted by cboullosa

Hi

This is my observations about the original question and some of the responses. Being half Mexican (the other half Spanish) and recently very interested in the Mexican revolution that broke out in 1910, I would be very excited to see that one of the main figures like "Pancho Villa" had issued propaganda oh this nature.

The poster as such is not inviting US Citizens to join up the Mexican Army but to fight alongside his rebel Army for the Mexican Revolution, US had economic interest in Mexico so they were already supplying Villa's army to continue the fighting in North Mexico.

Unfortunately unless someone is able to provide more arguments I truly believe this poster is not real and by the way if it was, it wouldn't be a plagiarised version of the Uncle Sam. You may notice that date in the poster cites issued in 1915, well… the original version of a poster of that nature was produced on request of Lord Kitchener (Chief Commander of the British Forces during WWI) and issued in 1914. I might underestimate Pancho Villa on this but provided his background I doubt he was interested in the War Propaganda produced in Europe in those days, so I don’t think this is real.

By the way the Uncle Sam concept although existed since the American Civil war did not come up with the join up image discussed in this forum until 1917.

Final note, "Gringo" is not an offensive or derogatory term per se, some of the theories of its origin date back to the Mexican - American War when Irish - American soldiers went off to battle chanting "(Green Grows the Grass in) My Old Kentucky Home" and "Green Grow the Lilacs", so Mexicans simplified the GREEN GROWS to GRINGOS due linguistic issues... but this is just a theory. Anyhow the only form that the word Gringo is offensive depends entirely on the context unlike "Beaner" which has no purpose other than denigrate Mexicans.


DI

This is exactly how I heard the origin of "Gringo" explained many years ago.