gusano

What it means

1. 1.

   A counter-revolutionary; someone who left Cuba, or who wants to. In official and pro-government mouths it is a straightforward political insult.

2. 2.

   Reclaimed, in Miami and increasingly among younger Cubans on the island, as a badge: worn on T-shirts, used self-mockingly, applied affectionately to relatives abroad.

Literally: Worm.

Examples with translations

• A mi abuela le dijeron gusana en el 80 y nunca lo olvidó.

  They called my grandmother a worm in 1980 and she never forgot it.

  Note: The Mariel exodus, when departing Cubans were publicly abused as they left.

• Aquí en Miami somos gusanos con orgullo.

  Here in Miami we're worms and proud of it.

  Note: The reclaimed diaspora use. On the island the word is still mostly a weapon.

Where it comes from

Fixed in Cuban political language by Fidel Castro's speeches of the early 1960s, which cast emigrants as parasites feeding on the revolution. A second, semi-folk account links it to the worm-shaped duffel bags exiles carried; the bags are real, but the speeches did the work. The feminine gusana and the diminutive gusanito are both current.

First attested: early 1960s