When the first Edition of El Libro de Cal Pachuco Slang Dictionary appeared in 1983, it was critically acclaimed as a much needed guide to a little-understood living dialect spoken predominantly by Mexican American teenagers whose dress, speech, low-rider cars, and attitudes set them off from those around them. " CHOICE, May 1984 (about El Libro de Cal Pachuco Slang Dictionary).
Recommended for public and academic libraries in California and the Southwest... permanent value. "As an anthropological record of a little-studied people, this work will have ...
In an easy-to-use format designed to appeal to the native English-speaker, El Libro de Cal The Chicano Slang Dictionary provides a unique and fascinating view of one aspect of our border culture.
Based primarily on data gathered in the San Diego/Tijuana and Calexico/Mexicali areas, this Edition incorporates terms from Texas, New Mexico and other areas of the Southwest as well.
Now, building on that first landmark study, the authors have produced an expanded, Revised edition.
That it is used by a group of people who exist at the edges of mainstream culture, however, has brought it into disrepute, and not many studies of Cal have been carried out with the thoroughness of this work.
Linguistically, these notions are ill-founded
Cal has as much validity and expressive potential as any other dialect.
Cal is popularly regarded as a bastard dialect, neither Spanish nor English.
When the first Edition of El Libro de Cal Pachuco Slang Dictionary appeared in 1983, it was critically acclaimed as a much needed guide to a little-understood living dialect spoken predominantly by Mexican American teenagers whose dress, speech, low-rider cars, and attitudes set them off from those around them
