Frajos

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Anthony. I’m calling from Salt Lake City, Utah.

Hi, Anthony. Welcome.

Hey, what’s up?

I had a question from my younger days when I was in high school.

We used to use a bunch of different Spanglish words.

Our money was fedia, and our cigarettes were frajos,

Mostly because you could ask your friend if they had a frajo in class,

And the teacher would have no clue what you were talking about.

-huh.

-huh. And Anthony, where did you grow up?

Pueblo, Colorado.

Okay.

So I moved away from Pueblo, and I moved to Salt Lake City,

And every so often one of my friends would ask me for a frajo.

So eventually I asked them if they had heard the word said by someone else

Or if they were just repeating what I said,

And I said, no, you’re the only person that we’ve ever heard say frajo.

Interesting.

But we know if we ask you for one, we’ve said the secret word,

And you’ll give us one.

And they’ll get one.

Spongers.

So you hang out with a bilingual Mexican-American crowd, probably, right?

Or at least, if not bilingual, they’ve got some Spanish in their vocabulary.

I don’t think any of them spoke it fluently.

It was just more for fun.

I know that in parts of Colorado, there are still families who’ve been there for hundreds of years,

And they’ve passed on some interesting forms of Spanish throughout the decades.

Does that describe you at all?

Well, I think most of the words came from one of our friends’ stepfather,

Who would just, when he was enjoying himself in the backyard,

Start to say a bunch of words, but we had no clue what they meant until we asked him.

So he’s got a barbecue going and a beer out,

And he’s kind of like just feeling his oats and having a great time,

And he starts throwing out the slang from his youth?

Right.

This word has been collected numerous times over the decades since the 1950s

By people who were studying the language of Mexican-Americans.

So people typically from the north of Mexico who came to the United States for work

Or to join their families here, they raised kids here,

And the kids speak an interesting, or did speak an interesting mix of English and Spanish.

Not quite Spanglish, it was just a good vocabulary enrichment, let’s call it.

So English with a heavy dose of some Spanish slang.

And Frejo, or Frajo, F-R-A-J-O, appears again and again on these lists from Texas and California and Colorado and some other places as one of these words that’s just typical of these young people.

Pachucos, they were sometimes called, sometimes referred derogatorily as the zoot suitors in the 50s and the 60s.

Yeah, they dressed really sharp.

Yeah, and it was heavily associated with the fancy car culture and certain kinds of dances and certain kinds of music.

And so this word is very typical of this group.

It even appears in some songs from the 50s and 60s.

I love the word.

Now, where it comes from, this is a bit of speculation,

But more than one source suggests that it comes from a Spanish verb, F-A-J-A-R, Fajar,

Which means, among other things, to put a wrapper on or to put a belt on.

Now, in the 50s and 60s, a fajo was just a cigarette, a tobacco cigarette.

But over the decades, it’s migrated slowly.

So if you hear somebody use it today, they probably mean a joint or a marijuana cigarette.

Really?

And not a tobacco cigarette, yeah, particularly in California.

And what’s really interesting, so they’re suggesting that fajar,

Which means to put a wrapper on or to roll up, was transformed suddenly to a new verb,

F-R. The R was inserted F-R-A-J-I-A-R, which means, again, to roll or to wrap up,

Frajiar, right? And then that in turn became frajo, which is a thing that was wrapped up.

So one verb turned into another verb, which turned into a noun. Now, if we go back to that

Original verb, fahar, it’s probably connected with fajita, which is a word that most of

Us know. A fajita is a little belt. It’s something small that’s wrapped around something else.

Well, Anthony, does that help?

It does. We weren’t ever quite sure whether the old man in the backyard was just making

Stuff up to toy with her head or actually using stuff from his childhood.

Well, now you have the answer.

Sweet.

Sweet.

Thank you so much.

More than you ever wanted to know.

Thanks for calling, Anthony.

Really appreciate it.

Awesome.

Bye-bye.

Thanks. Bye-bye.

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