Gook

Gook , a comparatively modern term and almost exclusively American in usage, is a powerful and revealing expression of xenophobia. Unlike most ethnic insults, it does not have a clear etymology, and its semantic history combines hostility toward outsiders with great flexibility in application. It thus shows the dynamics of linguistic xenophobia, which include race, war, immigration, and business rivalry.

The word is usually derived from two sources, both of them only probabilities. The earlier is goo-goo , a contemptuous expression of baby talk, originally applied to Filipinos and similar peoples from about 1900. (Linguistic belittlement is also the root of Hottentot. ) The later source is gook , meaning a fool or a peculiar person, an extension of an older meaning of the word, namely a prostitute, recorded in Farmer and Henley (1890–1904). Both possibilities are suggested by the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (1994), which specifies that the term was “originally military,” and gives this extensive definition: “a dark- or yellow-skinned foreigner; native; a native of the Philippines, the Southwest Pacific or adjacent areas, Central America, Japan, North Africa, Southern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, Korea or Indo-China; (now esp .) an East Asian person of any nationality; ( broadly ) any usu. non-European foreigner.”

This definition has extraordinary demographic breadth, extending much further than equivalent terms such as dago, wop , and wog . Quotations date from 1920, the first reference being to Haitians in the U.S. Marines, who were “nicknamed ‘Gooks,’ and have been treated with every variety of contempt, insult and brutality.” Subsequent applications are to the Philippines as “Gook Land” (1921), to the Nicaraguans (1927), to South Sea natives and to Italians (1944), to the Japanese (1945), to Koreans (1947), to Chinese Communists (1951), to Mexicans (1952), to Vietnamese (1967), to Indians (1970), to Lebanese (1970), to Turks (1974), and to Arabs (1988).

These semantic extensions and their chronology clearly indicate two factors. The first is that the term has steadily become a general-purpose expression of xenophobia applied to virtually all the peoples that American troops encountered, as enemies or allies. This is illustrated by dating the entry of American troops into various theaters of war: these include World War II (1941), the Korean War (1950), and the Vietnam War (1965). There are even World War II references to white New Zealanders in American works published much later, in 1958 and 1965. As one author frankly puts it, “A gook in the purest sense is anybody what ain’t American” (Karp, Doobie Doo 1965, 97). The second is that the term is used with a variety of tones, from the contemptuous to the affectionate. As tends to occur in words with wide semantic applications, the term has various grammatical extensions, such as Gooksville (1967, for North Vietnamese airspace) and gook-legged .

Although gook is largely an exclusively American term, it was borrowed by Australian troops during the Vietnam War. “This is a gook grave” was a comment reported in the Brisbane Sunday Mail Magazine (July 6, 1969). However, it is unlisted in the Australian National Dictionary (1988). The term has not gained currency in any other variety of English.