Certified Husky

A reflection on bodies, plus funny videos, C.S. Lewis, and suffering.

A young Big Head and the Piojo with my mom in a nicer part of New Jersey where we fished. The shirt reads “Dudeosours.” Nice.

Among Argentinian families like the one I grew up in, nicknames are so ubiquitous that thirty-five years in I still have relatives in the motherland whose real names I couldn't pick out of a phonebook. In their place are words, typically nouns, usually descriptive, and, in most cases, offensive to any English-speaking reader with a college education. My dad, who is stocky and stands 5-foot-5 on his tippy-toes, bears the nickname Enano (dwarf). My brother is also short, though wilier. When we were little, he'd regularly bounce off the walls, wreaking havoc I was left to pay for as he skirted around my father's belt to safety under the kitchen table or in the farthest corner of the house. This earned him the nickname Piojo (louse). As you know from my first book, my nickname, like my maternal grandfather's, Nono, is Cabezón (big head), self-explanatory.

But there are also generic nicknames, not required to make any sense though often heard in streets, soccer stadiums, and across back patios where asados are cooked, cards are dealt, and debates about any subject, from which family member makes the best empanadas to who knows the most about politics and soccer tactics, is had. Light-skinned people are called negrito, thin people are gordos, anyone with almond-shaped eyes or of Asian descent is a chino, and all Indians are hindúes (Hindus), regardless of religion.

I struggle with whether I am offending or should be offended by these nicknames, even as I use them with my own children. Will they understand that when I call them gorditos I mean it as a harmless term of endearment, not as a harsh criticism of their bodies? Should I stop calling the baby chinito when he squints real narrow and smiles as big as heaven? If I don’t, am I offending my Asian friends, despite that mestizos in Argentina—even famous ones like the reigning "sexiest man alive," el Chino Darín, and the boxer who nearly KO'd Mayweather, el Chino Maidana, are referred to this way every second in my parent's homeland?

But I digress. The point of this entry to the Attic Club archive is not my or any Argentinian’s personal use of nicknames. It is my lifelong struggle with my body, as experienced through nicknames.