# When did "wetback" become a slur?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 14, 2012, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730 "2012-03-14T11:25:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/1 "2012-03-14T11:25:21Z")
Appartently it is so bad that you can get warned for using it in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A quick revirew of Wikipedia mentions an alternative use based on the sweat showing on a hard workers back. Also an official Operation Wetback in 1954.
---
### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/2 "2012-03-14T11:48:27Z")
I think it was invented as a slur, and is not an example of a “neutral” descriptive term that became nyekulturny. (I put “neutral” in quotes because I believe a number of terms had always been offensive to the persons being described, even if no conscious offense was intended by the user.)
Or are you asking when it was first used?
---
### Author:  [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/3 "2012-03-14T11:56:48Z")
I always wondered this too. When I went to grad school in Houston, a seemingly intelligent classmate would use the word unabashedly. It certainly sounded like a derogatory and racist word, but no one seemed to ever raise an eyebrow when she used it. This was in the late '90’s.
---
### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/4 "2012-03-14T11:59:37Z")
Exactly. There are usually two moments in the story of a slur: when it becomes offensive to the person so referred (even if mildly so), and when the people using the word realize and/or care that they have been being offensive.
For many slurs, including this one, the first moment occurred the first time it was used (to refer to people who cross into the US without proper documents, typically by swimming across the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo. I agree that any earlier use referring to sweaty hard work is not part if this story).
Note that we shouldn’t “blame” the objects of this slur for taking offense before the larger society realized it was not a nice thing to say. Any reasoned examination of the term itself makes it obvious that it was meant to poke fun (or worse) at the act of undocumented entry, even if early users of the term, for reasons deeply embedded in the ethos of their time, were unable to take the next step and say to themselves, “ge, maybe I shouldn’t SAY it, then!”
---
### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/5 "2012-03-14T12:43:37Z")
I’ve always assumed it was offensive - was there a time when it wasn’t?
---
### Author:  [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/6 "2012-03-14T13:15:25Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> I’ve always assumed it was offensive - was there a time when it wasn’t?
Ditto, I grew up in Houston and since I can remember it was used as a racial slur, often against someone who was merely hispanic but born in the USA.
I can’t even imagine how it could be used in a non-derogatory fashion, except maybe among friends in a joking manner.
---
### Author:  [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/7 "2012-03-14T13:57:23Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> I’ve always assumed it was offensive - was there a time when it wasn’t?
Agreed. Going back at least to the 1950’s
---
### Author:  [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/8 "2012-03-14T14:10:09Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#):
>
> I always wondered this too. When I went to grad school in Houston, a seemingly intelligent classmate would use the word unabashedly. It certainly sounded like a derogatory and racist word, but no one seemed to ever raise an eyebrow when she used it. This was in the late '90’s.
My mom was born in West Texas in 1931 to two wetbacks and she tells me that it has always been a derogatory term. And it does not surprise her at all that people in Texas use it unabashedly and without shame since these are the children of people that wouldn’t let her go to the same theater, use the same drinking fountain or eat in the same dinner as the white kids.
---
### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/9 "2012-03-14T14:12:06Z")
Agreed with the others. Don’t forget that Wikipedia’s greatest strength is also its greatest liability – editing by users. Frankly, that ‘sweat on a back’ derivation sounds bogus, something invented by an anti-Hispanic in an effort to legitimize the slur.
---
### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/10 "2012-03-14T14:24:08Z")
> [@Polycarp](#):
>
> Agreed with the others. Don’t forget that Wikipedia’s greatest strength is also its greatest liability – editing by users. Frankly, that ‘sweat on a back’ derivation sounds bogus, something invented by an anti-Hispanic in an effort to legitimize the slur.
But also one of its strengths is noting when a claim is uncited, as is the case here. And most people don’t realize this, but there is a “Talk” tab where you can see how people have commented about the content. Controversial topics will have heated “Talk” pages that could rival anything in GD or the Pit.
---
### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/11 "2012-03-14T15:24:23Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> But also one of its strengths is noting when a claim is uncited, as is the case here. And most people don’t realize this, but there is a “Talk” tab where you can see how people have commented about the content. Controversial topics will have heated “Talk” pages that could rival anything in GD or the Pit.
This is not really a very good solution. A mob of amateurs are not necessarily very good at evaluating claims when their sole criteria for evaluation are whether there are citations to secondary sources.
I just heard a piece on “On the Media,” about Timothy Messer-Kruse, a historian at Bowling Green State University, who tried to correct the Wikipedia article on the Haymarket riots and was overruled by lay editors. Years later, after Messer-Kruse published a book on his research, some other editor used it to correct the article. But the irony or the tragedy was that the _actual expert_ using original sources was blocked from contributing his expertise.
---
### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/12 "2012-03-14T16:09:11Z")
[Here](http://chronicle.com/article/The-Undue-Weight-of-Truth-on/130704/?sid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en) is an article by Messer-Kruse on his Wikipedia experience.
---
### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/13 "2012-03-14T16:14:03Z")
Agree that it was a slur when it was originated. Just because there have been times it was and is used unabashedly doesn’t mean that there was a point that it wasn’t a slur.
When I was a kid, “nigger” was used unabashedly also. I have a hard time thinking that term at some point wasn’t a slur.
---
### Author:  [@florez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/florez)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/14 "2012-03-14T16:28:00Z")
Mexicans hate the term “wetback”, which refers to the wet back of a person from crossing the Rio Grande, and we notice that racists who like to use the term generally are from people who must have gotten very wet backs from crossing the ocean to get here.
---
### Author:  [@abel29a](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abel29a)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/15 "2012-03-14T16:28:26Z")
Pardon a slight hijack, but people earlier in the thread made references to wetback as early as the 50s, or maybe even earlier. I’ve always assumed (always meaning the last few years when I realized what a wetback “was”), that it had something to do with immigrants via Mexico swimming the Rio Grande. But was this a common occurrence 60/70 years ago, or have I simply assumed the origin of the term wrong?
---
### Author:  [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/16 "2012-03-14T16:34:56Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#):
>
> Agree that it was a slur when it was originated. Just because there have been times it was and is used unabashedly doesn’t mean that there was a point that it wasn’t a slur.
>
> When I was a kid, “nigger” was used unabashedly also. I have a hard time thinking that term at some point wasn’t a slur.
Imagine Abraham Lincoln saying it in a neutral context, then.
Wetback implies a certain action and condition applying to a person.
Negro, which is what I suspect ‘nigger’ derives from, just refers to a color.
---
### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/17 "2012-03-14T16:46:03Z")
> [@abel29a](#):
>
> Pardon a slight hijack, but people earlier in the thread made references to wetback as early as the 50s, or maybe even earlier. I’ve always assumed (always meaning the last few years when I realized what a wetback “was”), that it had something to do with immigrants via Mexico swimming the Rio Grande. But was this a common occurrence 60/70 years ago, or have I simply assumed the origin of the term wrong?
The first use of the term is [this New York Times article](http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E0DE7DE153AEE32A25753C2A9609C946195D6CF) from 1920 (cited in the Wikipedia article) describing a mass migration of illegal immigrants from Mexico entering Texas by way of the Rio Grande. It specifically says that the term originated from their method of entry.
I first heard the term in the early 1960s, from a teacher who mentioned it as a word that we shouldn’t use because it was derogatory. He said it originated from immigrants swimming across the Rio Grande.
The supposed “sweaty back” derivation is uncited and is clearly bullshit.
---
### Author:  [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/18 "2012-03-14T16:57:54Z")
I remember hearing wetback when I was a kid, and it was a slur then. I’m 60, and grew up in the suburbs of Chicago.
---
### Author:  [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/19 "2012-03-14T17:01:48Z")
I’ve heard Canadians referred to as “frostbacks.”
---
### Author:  [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730/20 "2012-03-14T17:22:14Z")
I’ve heard lab assistants from Transylvania referred to as “hunchbacks.”
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wetback-become-a-slur/615730.md?page=2)