jinetera

What it means

1. 1.

   A woman who forms relationships with foreign tourists for material benefit. The term deliberately blurs sex work, a hustle and an actual relationship, because in practice the categories blurred.

2. 2.

   Masculine jinetero: a man who does the same, or more often a street hustler who steers tourists to restaurants, taxis and cigars for a commission.

3. 3.

   The activity is el jineteo; the verb is jinetear.

Examples with translations

• La policía se lleva a los jineteros del Malecón cada dos por tres.

  The police clear the hustlers off the Malecón constantly.

• Le dicen jinetera porque anda con un italiano, y eso es todo lo que saben.

  They call her a jinetera because she's with an Italian, and that's all they actually know.

  Note: The word is used as a slur far beyond its literal sense, particularly about any Cuban woman seen with a foreign man.

Where it comes from

From jinete, 'horseman, rider' — the metaphor is of riding the tourist. It emerged at the start of the Special Period in the early 1990s, when the collapse of Soviet subsidies and the opening of tourism made hard currency the only currency that mattered.

First attested: early 1990s