David Wright wrote:
> "krusty kritter" > wrote:

> >What are "charras"? I tried to look it up in my
> > Spanish dictionary and I found "charrada", which means,
> > "a coarse thing, in bad taste, bad breeding"...
>
> Sounds to me like the feminine of "charro," so I envision
> an elegant, slender, Dona on horseback, dressed in black,
> wearing a flat-brimmed hat and confidently holding her horse
> in check while looking defiantly into the eye of the viewer.
> Whew!
> I must excuse myself now. ;-)

I can't fault you in the least for imagining a romantic interlude with
a dark-eyed Spanish lady. It's certainly an appealing image...

It's also a stereotypical image and a bit bigoted, as I will explain...

My Spanish dictionary says that a "charro"
is a "coarse individual", "charra" is the feminine of "charro"
and that as an adjective it means "coarse", or "gaudy"...

I can remember Duncan Reynaldo as the Cisco Kid from from 1950's TV
shows, with his gaudy black attire and his gaudy saddle, contrasted
with the plainer Pancho, his sidekick, who in real life
was Leo Carillo, son or grandson of a Spanish "gente de raison" who
held a Spanish land grant in Ventura County, CA where I was raised...

The Spanish half century in California from 1770 to 1821 is always
portrayed as a romantic period in novels and movies. But I was going
through the museum at the old Spanish presidio in Santa Barbara, CA and
I was looking at a painting of a scene that depicted Spanish colonists
in California encountering a group of American explorers, mountain men,
such as Kit Carson or Jim Bridger. The plaque next to the painting
explained that the Spaniards in California were always depicted as cool
and calm and coiffed and manicured, while Americans were always
depicted as ruffled and dirty looking...

I remembered that plaque when I was looking at a diorama in the Museum
of Natural History in Los Angeles. It depicted the Bear Flag Revolt
that occurred before the War with Mexico actually began...

Again, the Spaniards are depicted as well-dressed and well-groomed,
while the Americans raising the Bear Flag in Monterey are depicted as
ruffians. One of the Americans is wearing long underwear and is
pulling up his pants, while the Spaniards are all in decorous poses...