Macias, who crossed illegally into the U.S. through Tijuana two decades ago, has heard the term mojado for much of his life and sees it less as an insult than a description of a common immigrant experience.
“As a country of immigrants,” he says in Spanish, “in one way or another, we’re all mojados.”
Macias is very offended, however, when he hears a white person use it. That distinction befuddles his 20-year-old daughter Karina.
“It definitely is a term to divide people,” she said. “You can't use it as a term of endearment at all, whether it's someone outside of your culture or not.”
The slew of apologies that followed news that Alaska’s congressman had used the term during a radio interview last week brought the term into the national debate. But in Latino communities, it also highlighted how the word’s context and power has changed through the generations.
